INCREASED demand for general practitioners has led to a blowout in low priority cases presenting at the Bathurst Base Hospital emergency department.
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Latest figures released by the Bureau of Health Information revealed 955 Triage 5 patients attended the ED between April and June this year.
That was up from just 186 12 months earlier.
Triage 5 presentations are the lowest priority cases and include small cuts, abrasions and flu symptoms.
Hospital general manager Sue Patterson said the 413 per cent increase in presentations was a timely reminder that hospital was not the right choice for many patients.
“The growth of Triage 5 is reflective of the same population increases, coupled with the demand for GPs in the local area,” Ms Patterson said.
“The Health District would like to take this opportunity to remind people that their local GP is the best point of call if they have flu symptoms, not the local hospital emergency department.”
Triage 2 presentations – emergency cases including chest pains and severe burns – were up 43 per cent from 420 to 602 for the quarter, though overall ED presentations were down 5.6 per cent from 6284 to 5932.
The BHI figures also revealed long waiting lists for a number of elective surgery categories, including orthopaedics.
But Ms Patterson said that was one of the good news stories at the hospital with an increase in orthopaedics patients reflecting the extra resources that have been dedicated to the department in recent years.
There were 229 patients on the orthopaedic surgery waiting list at the end of June, up from 138 a year earlier, while the average waiting time for surgery had more than doubled.
The average waiting time had gone from 81 days to 199.
“The number of patients waiting for orthopaedic surgery has increased in the last quarter as a result of having orthopaedic surgeons based in Bathurst,” Ms Patterson said.
“This means that patients are having their orthopaedic surgery closer to home rather than having their surgery at other facilities.
“Although the number of patients waiting for orthopaedic surgery has increased, patients are still having surgery well within the required timeframes.”
One of the big improvements in the latest figures was the average waiting time for tonsillectomies, down from 211 days to 101 days in just a year.