LGH urgent surgery waitlist effectively doubles in last year

Data released by the Department of Health on Friday showed the number of patients waiting for Category 1 elective surgery at the LGH grew from 277 to 497 between July 2021 and July 2022.

Category 1 is classed as urgent and requires surgery within 30 days. Bypass surgeries, some types of cancers, and some neurosurgical conditions, such as aneurysm, often fall under it.

Over the same time period, the waiting list dropped from 655 to 461 patients at the Royal Hobart Hospital.

Australian Medical Association Tasmania spokesperson Dr Michael Lumsden-Steel said the situation reflected underfunding, a lack of staff, and an inability to move lower acuity patients out of acute care.

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He said Launceston did not have the same bed capacity as Hobart, and urgently needed another 30 beds.

"What that means is to move the patients to the emergency department, you need to put the patients into the hospital somewhere, and the only capacity at the LGH is to take up surgical beds, and when you take up surgical beds you have to cancel surgical operations," he said.

Dr Lumsden-Steel said without a private hospital or co-located hospital, as in Hobart, there was no functioning private emergency department to divert patients from the LGH.

He said the situation at the LGH was exacerbated by the borders opening - the increase in COVID patients, and the required resources and logistics chewing into operating theatre time.

"We get reduced efficiencies because it takes longer to move them around the hospital, they take longer in the operating theatres because of our PPE processes, [and] they take longer to recover," he said.

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The data also showed the percentage of Category 1 patient at the LGH seen in time dropped from 59 per cent to 52 per cent, compared to a rise from 63 per cent to 65 per cent at the RHH.

State Health Commander Kathrine Morgan-Wicks said improvements could be made, and the state government's Elective Surgery Four-Year Plan 2021-2025 aimed to substantially increase elective surgery delivery.

"The COVID-19 pandemic has created unprecedented demand for health services and caused significant operational pressures on our public hospitals," she said.

Ms Morgan-Wicks said the LGH delivered a 3,062 Category 1 elective surgeries over the 2021-22 financial year, a "record amount" in any financial year.

Premier Jeremy Rockliff said the plan would deliver about 30,000 extra elective surgeries and endoscopies.

"It also outlines a range of statewide and regional strategies, including opening additional surgical and medical beds to reduce the need for surgical beds to be used for non-surgical patients, in times of high demand."

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