Media release
From the Acting Premier of Victoria
Monday, 16 January 2006
BLITZ ON ELECTIVE SURGERY
Acting Premier John Thwaites today visited St Vincent’s hospital to inspect the elective surgery blitz program that will result in an extra 10,000 elective surgery patients being treated in public hospitals this financial year.
Mr Thwaites said the Bracks Government’s $30 million blitz on elective surgery was aimed at reducing waiting times for surgery.
He said the initiative was also funding around 25,000 extra outpatient and allied health appointments across the State.
“Priority has been given to the semi-urgent and non-urgent patients who have been waiting longer than the ideal,” he said.
“The extra Government funding has resulted in patients who have been on waiting lists being fast-tracked and the co-operation between major hospitals has enabled this to be achieved.
“And the blitz on elective surgery is expected to continue over the summer months with St Vincent’s putting on an extra orthopaedic surgeon, and the Austin Hospital, Western and Southern Health significantly increasing elective surgery sessions.
As part of the blitz, St Vincent’s will use $3.13 million in funding to target 345 long-waiting patients for orthopaedic and general surgery and hip and knee replacements and establish a specialist surgery management team.
Mr Thwaites said St Vincent’s had reduced its overall waiting lists by nearly 15 per cent over the past six months and was on track to meet the targets over the next five months.
“The extra funding has enabled St Vincent’s to extend its capacity as a centre of excellence for hip and knee replacements, and will provide surgery for 125 long-waiting patients from around the State over the next five months bring its annual total to 450.
“The Bracks Government’s extra funding is enabling hospitals to work more closely together and target the longest-waiting patients, no matter where they live or which hospital they have previously been dealing with.
“As well as St Vincent’s taking a central role with hip and knee replacements, specialist elective surgery centres are being established at Williamstown Hospital for orthopaedics, Northern Hospital for general surgery and the Royal Women’s Hospital for gynaecology.
………………/2
“And when completed, the Alfred Centre, the $88.9 million state-of-the-art elective surgery specialist centre being built on the Alfred Hospital site will be able to cater for the elective surgery for more than 20,000 hospital patients and 28,000 outpatients each year.”
Mr Thwaites said Victoria’s public hospital system was providing timely treatment for the vast majority of patients who need elective surgery, and the extra $30 million ensured that results were even better.
“The Your Hospitals report shows that in the most recent period, 75 per cent of semi-urgent patients received their operations within three months and more than half of them within 42 days.
“On top of that, all urgent patients received their operations within 30 days with more than half of them within a turnaround of seven days.
“And 91 per cent of non-urgent patients were operated on within a year – and more than half of those were within 62 days.
“Your Hospitals shows that in 2004/05, nearly twice as many people requiring non-urgent elective surgery were treated than were on the waiting list.”
Mr Thwaites said the waiting list blitz also involved innovative approaches to channel more patients into same-day procedures where appropriate, streamline and reduce the number of pre-surgery appointments and provide review clinics for patients who have waited the longest times.
A range of other measures was introduced to reduce the time to wait for elective surgery, including bonuses for hospitals which meet surgery targets and extra Elective Surgery Access Co-ordinators to streamline long-waiting patients through to the hospitals with the capacity to do their operation.
Media contact: Geoff Fraser on 0407 360 256 or Campbel Giles 0407 972 900