THE waiting time for a tonsillectomy operation in Bathurst Hospital is around one-quarter of the time in Orange or Dubbo.
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The latest Bureau of Health Information (BHI) quarterly report, released this week, found tonsillectomy patients are the big winners, after a significant drop in waiting times for elective surgery in Bathurst.
Patients faced a wait of 88 days to have their tonsils removed at Bathurst Hospital between January and March, down significantly compared with 291 days in the same period last year.
But for those in Orange, the waiting time was 334 days, and in Dubbo it was 363.
While the news was good for some in Bathurst, other elective surgery patients faced much longer wait times.
Orthopaedic surgery was 345 days (up from 198), ophthalmology 316 days (up from 207) and urology 26 days (up from 20).
Cataract extraction patients waited 316 days (up from 216 days), according to the report.
The waiting times for general surgery, gynaecology and urology surgeries in Bathurst were all below the average waiting time for similar size hospitals.
Patients waiting on abdominal hysterectomy (37 days), cholecystectomy (47 days) or cystoscopy (31 days) surgery in Bathurst also faced a shorter wait than similar hospitals.
Bathurst Hospital general manager David Wright said reduced waiting times for a tonsillectomy are the “flow through” effect from an additional ear, nose and throat surgeon employed two years ago.
“Dr David Houghton came on board about two years go and now there’s a flow through in that,” he said.
Elective surgeries are classified as urgent (30 days), semi-urgent (90 days) and non-urgent (365 days).
“Our main aim is we get the work done within the time frames,” Mr Wright said.
While 100 per cent of urgent surgeries are conducted within a month, 99 per cent of semi-urgent surgeries are performed within three months, and 93 per cent of non-urgent cases are performed with a year.
Mr Wright said elective surgery waiting times are also dependent on the surgeon’s schedules and consultation times, and this latest data reflects these challenges.
Overall, Mr Wright said the latest BHI data was a positive result for Bathurst.
“I think we’re performing well in emergency access targets and elective surgery targets,” he said.
“The data is really good data that we use particularly to measure how we’re going as compared to other hospitals.
