Elective surgery waits fall at Rockhampton Hospital

Rockhampton Hospital’s elective surgery waiting list has fallen year-on-year, according to the latest hospital performance figures.

Health Minister Stephen Robertson today released the September Quarterly Public Hospitals Performance Report, which showed 644 patients were admitted from the waiting list in the September quarter - a 6.8 per cent increase on the 603 from the same period last year.

One category 1 patient was waiting longer than 30 days for surgery, 168 category 2 patients were waiting longer than 90 days for surgery (up from 109), and 81 category 3 patients were waiting longer than 365 days for surgery (down from 246).

Mr Robertson said continuing reductions in the number of ‘long wait’ patients over the last few quarters is a strong sign that the Queensland Government’s ‘long wait’ reduction strategies were having a positive effect in improving timely access to elective surgery services for Queenslanders.

“However, despite treating a record number of ‘long wait’ patients, there was still more to be done and I am committed to maintaining the momentum driven by the Bligh Government to achieve further improvements,” he said.

“Category 2 (semi-urgent) ‘long-waits’ are still higher than we would like and have increased (1.4 per cent) slightly over the quarter.

“This is partly due to our focus on Category 1 (urgent) elective surgery in our hospitals and Surgery Connect’s focus on mostly Category 3 ‘long waits’(non-urgent), and this is something we will be paying more attention to over this quarter,” he said.

The data also shows Rockhampton Hospital treated 13,532 people as inpatients or emergencies in the quarter, down 6.1 per cent on the 14,409 treated in the same period last year.

Mr Robertson said the virulent 2007 flu season was a possible reason for the decrease in attendances.

“I am told a high number of patients were diagnosed with pneumonia last year, which required inpatient admission,” he said.

The 16,610 outpatient occasions of service provided at the hospital in the September quarter was 10.1 per cent down on the 18,472 in the same period the previous year.

Emergency department attendances were also down 6.6 per cent to 9757.

Ends.

MEDIA: Kate Van Poelgeest 3234 1185 or Martin Philip 3235 2680

Category 1 = urgent admission within 30 days desirable, for a condition that has the potential to deteriorate quickly to the point that it may become an emergency.

Category 2 = semi-urgent admission within 90 days desirable, for a condition causing some pain, dysfunction or disability but which is not likely to deteriorate quickly or become an emergency.

Category 3 = non-urgent admission at some time in the future acceptable, for a condition causing minimal or no pain, dysfunction or disability, which is unlikely to deteriorate quickly and which does not have the potential to become an emergency

People treated in emergency departments = the number of accident and emergency services provided. For example, a patient attends emergency three times, then it is counted as three separate attendances to the emergency department.

People treated as inpatients or emergencies = the number of admitted patient episodes plus the number of emergency services not resulting in admission. For example, some people will attend the emergency department and then be admitted to hospital. These people will only be counted once as inpatients and not counted as emergency patients for this particular figure.

Outpatient services provided = the number of outpatient and other non-admitted services minus services such as emergency, pharmacy, pathology, diagnostic imaging, community health services, district nursing services and other outreach services.