Jillian Skinner MP

Member for North Shore
Deputy NSW Coalition Leader
Shadow Minister for Health
Shadow Minister for Science & Medical Research
Shadow Minister for the Arts

Portfolios

Waiting Lists ...

All figures on this page are from lists compiled by NSW Health and released by the Health Minister to the press, obtained by the Opposition under Freedom of Information or from the Minister's own website.

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Waiting Lists:
Waiting Lists at Specific Hospitals

Waiting Lists (Using latest data currently on NSW Health website)

As at June 2008, there were 58,173 people waiting for elective treatment in our public hospitals compared to 56,640 a year earlier in June 2006, and 44,707 in March 1995 when the Labor Government was elected on a promise to halve hospital waiting lists.

elective surgery waiting list

..... or put another way .. Under Labor, the elective surgery waiting list has grown by 30% ...

elective surgery % increase under Labor

And the people who were treated in June 2008 had waited much longer for their operation than patients who were treated in March 1995 when Labor came to office.

average waiting time

However ....

Many doctors claim these waiting lists are very conservative with many more patients not counted. Of the many tactics used to artificially reduce waiting lists, the practice of re-categorising patients is one of the most obvious.

Doctors have reporting that hospitals have contacted their patients offering them an operation with another doctor. If they decline they are re-categorised as either 'staged or deferred' Category 9 patients and dropped from the waiting list.

NEW SOUTH WALES PUBLIC HOSPITALS
BOOKED SURGERY
PATIENTS ON THE WAITING TIMES REGISTER
Urgency 9 (Staged and Deferred) Patients
June 008
Staged	8,624
Deferred	4,362
Total	12,988

Strategies to make lists look shorter at Election times ....

The government uses every trick in the book to make lists appear shorter at election times. The most obvious is the delay of publication of data for January, February and March so that December waiting lists, traditionally the lowest, were those reported at the time of the last election on March 24th - just as they were in 2003 and 1999.

As it did just before the 1999 and 2003 elections, the government brought forward money to do a quick burst of surgery just before the election in March 2007 to make waiting lists go down, as demonstrated in the charts below compiled from monthly waiting lists. The problem is that because waiting lists are just artificially reduced the suddenly leap up after election day.

And the latest, most cynical exercise of all, has been revealed in a NSW Health letter instructing doctors that they cannot place patients on the waiting list if they can't treat them within clinicially appropriate times. These times are one month for the most urgent Category 1, three months for urgency Category 2 and a year for urgency Category 3. The Coaltion has identified numerous patients in this position. They don't know they are not on the waiting list - it has only been revealed because the government is claiming there are no people waiting more than 12 months when these patients have waited even longer.

elective surgery election chart

And although they don't attract as much attention, waiting lists for medical treatment in NSW hospitals have also grown dramatically with 14,347 people waiting in June 2008 compared to 6,800 in December 1995 (only figures available for that year).

elective medical waiting list

.... in other words, elective medical waiting list has grown by 111% under Labor ...

Medical % increase

Waiting Lists at Specific Hospitals

The chart below shows how many people are waiting for treatment at specific hospitals.

The charts compare currently available figures - for June 2008- with the list in March 1995 when Labor was elected on a promise to cut waiting lists by half. These latest figures were only made available by the government on September 3rd.

It also compares the June 2008 list with the list of June 2007 - a year earlier.

The 1995 figures were obtained by the Coalition under Freedom of Information provisions, and latest figures are from the Government's Waiting Times Website.

The lists also show the average length of time (in months) that patients treated in the month shown had waited before surgery.

Some hospitals have dropped some operations from elective surgery lists so latest figures should be regarded as conservative when comparisons are made.

Hospitals with particularly long waiting lists and those that have many people waiting longer periods for surgery tend to be those that do orthopaedic, ophthalmology and Ear, Nose and Throat operations.

Specialists in these areas constantly complain that they cannot get access to operating theatres frequently enough to treat their patients.

Latest lists and change under Labor

	Mar-95		Jun-07		Jun-08		Change Jun 08 v Mar 95		Change Jun 08 v Jun 07
Hospital	Wtg list	Ave Wait (mths)	Wtg list	Ave Wait (mths)	Wtg list	Ave Wait (mths)	Wtg List	Ave Wait (mths)	Wtg List	Ave Wait (mths)
Albury	371	1.23	477	2.15	594	2	223	0.54	117	-0.38
Batemans Bay	16	0.55	465	5.25	549	6	533	5.83	84	1.13
Bega	36	0.58	360	3.38	503	4	467	3.38	143	0.58
Cooma	27	0.51	126	2.64	104	2.29	77	1.78	-22	-0.35
Cootamundra	0	0.00	20	1.33	34	1.36	34	1.36	14	0.03
Corowa	18	0.23	16	0.90	37	1.95	19	1.72	21	1.05
Crookwell	0	0	0	0.00			0	0.00	0	0.00
Deniliquin	11	0.41	45	1.99	46	2.52	35	2.11	1	0.53
Goulburn	165	0.86	410	1.88	340	2.44	175	1.58	-70	0.56
Griffith	0	0	259	2.13	288	3.82	288	3.82	29	1.69
Leeton	0	0.00	26	1.12	23	2.93	23	2.93	-3	1.81
Moruya	30	0.47	119	2.24	141	2.79	111	2.32	22	0.55
Narrandera	0	0	10	1.93	7	2.3	7	2.30	-3	0.37
Pambula	7	0.33	69	2.86	41	1.66	34	1.33	-28	-1.20
Queanbeyan	32	1.3	133	2.07	190	2.04	158	0.74	57	-0.03
Temora	0	0.00	0	0.38	1	0.19	1	0.19	1	-0.19
Tumut	12	0	45	1.49	44	1.17	32	1.17	-1	-0.32
Wagga Wagga	1,276	2.94	1,784	3.83	1950	4.15	674	1.21	166	0.32
Young	22	0	34	1.41	45	3.32	23	3.32	11	1.91
Bathurst	292	0.88	460	2.18	510	3	218	1.68	50	0.38
Bourke	33	1.63	39	0.00	33	0	0	-1.63	-6	0.00
Broken Hill	204	0.88	341	2.52	337	2	133	1.10	-4	-0.54
Condobolin	2	0	0	0.00			-2	0.00	0	0.00
Cowra	20	0.23	63	0.94	49	1.61	29	1.38	-14	0.67
Dubbo	813	1.52	718	3.21	737	2.25	-76	0.73	19	-0.96
Forbes	75	0.2	163	1.09	149	7.06	74	6.86	-14	5.97
Mudgee	33	0.24	228	3.01	207	4.68	174	4.44	-21	1.67
Orange	567	1.33	1,073	3.59	1262	3.26	695	1.93	189	-0.33
Parkes	34	0.43	28	1.64	36	1.42	2	0.99	8	-0.22
Armidale	245	1.62	373	2.12	392	4	147	2.43	19	1.93
Belmont	444	1.78	438	2.13	683	2	239	0.58	245	0.23
Calvary Mater Newcastle	217	1.07	179	1.10	163	2	-54	0.77	-16	0.74
Cessnock	85	0.66	109	0.82	116	1	31	0.50	7	0.34
Glen Innes	51	1.48	11	1.07	9	1.23	-42	-0.25	-2	0.16
Gloucester	0	0	116	1.80	99	3.31	99	3.31	-17	1.51
Gunnedah	28	0.36	56	1.24	61	1.29	33	0.93	5	0.05
Inverell	107	1.19	85	2.37	74	2.12	-33	0.93	-11	-0.25
John Hunter (includes Royal N'castle from Apr 06)	2,967		3,237	3	3346	2.74	379	2.74	109	-0.27
Kurri Kurri	230	0	565	3.05	780	5.14	550	5.14	215	2.09
Maitland	224	1.05	537	2.66	577	2.39	353	1.34	40	-0.27
Manning	1,071	3.76	941	4.29	956	3.16	-115	-0.60	15	-1.13
Moree	33	0.71	51	0.63	119	2.4	86	1.69	68	1.77
Muswellbrook	0		63	1.08	6	0.35	6	0.35	-57	-0.73
Narrabri	10	0.48	20	0.52	22	0.75	12	0.27	2	0.23
Quirindi	9	0.23					-9	-0.23	0	0.00
Scott Memorial	0		27	1.08	29	1.31	29	1.31	2	0.23
Singleton	11	0.15	72	1.22	97	2	86	1.41	25	0.34
Tamworth	1,175	2.32	786	2.85	791	2.74	-384	0.42	5	-0.11
Children's Hospital at Westmead	792	1.31	1,663	2.55	1453	3.15	661	1.84	-210	0.60
Ballina	98	0.81	91	1.55	72	2	-26	0.93	-19	0.19
Bellinger	47	0	54	3.43	43	2	-4	1.56	-11	-1.87
Casino	120	0.7	150	2.01	130	1	10	0.78	-20	-0.53
Coffs Harbour	828	2.81	1,836	5.23	1862	5.33	1,034	2.52	26	0.10
Grafton	186	0.41	485	1.88	548	1.68	362	1.27	63	-0.20
Kempsey	0	1.56	243	2.83	247	4.07	247	2.51	4	1.24
Lismore	463	1.21	1,072	2.26	1131	2.3	668	1.09	59	0.04
Macksville	12	0.36	276	7.94	329	8.3	317	7.94	53	0.36
Maclean	13	0.41	24	1.55	20	1.13	7	0.72	-4	-0.42
Murwillumbah	267	1.97	1,011	3.64	858	6.45	591	4.48	-153	2.81
Port Macquarie	802	2.01	1,093	3.64	1155	3.83	353	1.82	62	0.19
Tweed	557	1.83	935	3.12	789	3.39	232	1.56	-146	0.27
Wauchope	87	3.01	226	3.75	268	5.38	181	2.37	42	1.63
Gosford	2,094	2.2	2,424	3.92	2155	3.52	61	1.32	-269	-0.40
Hornsby	291	1.05	542	2.25	470	2.05	179	1.00	-72	-0.20
Manly	300	0.75	216	1.80	128	1.22	-172	0.47	-88	-0.58
Mona Vale	94	0.37	185	1.81	178	1.14	84	0.77	-7	-0.67
Royal North Shore	1,545	0.92	1,248	1.79	943	1.38	-602	0.46	-305	-0.41
Ryde Hospital	478	1.33	188	2.51	188	1.92	-290	0.59	0	-0.59
Wyong	268	1.17	1,018	3.17	900	3.44	632	2.27	-118	0.27
Bulli	395	1.85	924	3.59	924	5	529	3.02	0	1.28
Milton Ulladulla	3	1.07	9	0.90	8	1	5	-0.07	-1	0.10
PH/Prince of Wales	1,835	1.74	1,504	2.02	1676	1.73	-159	-0.01	172	-0.29
Royal Hospital for Women	333	0.73	397	1.95	208	2	-125	0.89	-189	-0.33
Shellharbour	520	2.01	302	1.61	331	2.73	-189	0.72	29	1.12
Shoalhaven	793	2.35	982	4.61	1119	4.62	326	2.27	137	0.01
St George	1,699	1.8	1,078	2	1232	2.31	-467	0.51	154	0.07
St Vincent's	1,295	1.66	801	1.73	537	1.14	-758	-0.52	-264	-0.59
Sutherland	707	1.47	946	3.22	1174	3.42	467	1.95	228	0.20
Sydney & Sydney Eye	285	0.92	1,742	4.41	1873	3.99	1,588	3.07	131	-0.42
Sydney Children's	1,036	2.55	580	1.47	739	1.88	-297	-0.67	159	0.41
Wollongong	1,067	3.04	1,120	2.55	1172	2.52	105	-0.52	52	-0.03
Bankstown/Lidcombe	1,058	1.14	1,709	2.98	1,845	3	787	1.98	136	0.14
Bowral	309	1.31	478	3.44	355	4	46	2.55	-123	0.42
Canterbury	182	0.97	893	3.22	929	4	747	2.53	36	0.28
Concord	957	1.22	1,816	2.39	1615	2.71	658	1.49	-201	0.32
Fairfield	511	1.27	1,358	3.37	1505	3.87	994	2.60	147	0.50
Institute of Rheumatology & Orthopaedics formerly Rachel Forster	246		241	2	253	1.24	7	1.24	12	-0.40
Liverpool	1,383	1.8	1,841	2.23	2032	2.67	649	0.87	191	0.44
Macarthur (Camden + Campbelltown)	1,246	1.58	1,421	2.69	1278	3.2	32	1.62	-143	0.51
Royal Prince Alfred	1,394	0.79	834	0.95	596	0.57	-798	-0.22	-238	-0.38
Auburn	1,321	1.86	611	2.38	767	2	-554	0.06	156	-0.46
Blacktown	708	1.23	530	1.99	551	2	-157	0.56	21	-0.20
Blue Mountains	126	1.52	129	2.51	100	4	-26	2.45	-29	1.46
Hawkesbury	329	1.89	420	3.88	440	4.69	111	2.80	20	0.81
Lithgow	38	0.43	219	2.69	249	1.81	211	1.38	30	-0.88
Mt Druitt	787	2.24	525	2.24	733	3.04	-54	0.80	208	0.80
Nepean	1,541	2.59	1,562	2.08	2,030	2	489	-0.70	468	-0.19
Springwood	126	1.09	88	2.01	126	2.29	0	1.20	38	0.28
Westmead	1,834	1.46	1,423	2.01	1332	1.79	-502	0.33	-91	-0.22
TOTAL	44,707	1.42	56,640	2.58	58173	2.67	13,466	1.25	1,533	0.09