BATHURST Health Service has recorded its worst performance in four year for the on-time treatment of emergency patients.
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One-in-five patients triaged as T2 (emergency) at the hospital between July and September waited longer than the benchmark 10 minutes for their treatment to start, up from just one-in-20 patients 12 months earlier.
It was Bathurst’s worst result since the same quarter in 2014 when just 70 per cent of T2 patients had their treatment start on time, the latest Bureau of Health Information data has revealed.
T2 (emergency) presentations are categorised by NSW Health as having an immediately life-threatening condition, including critical injuries and cardiac arrest.
There were 698 T2 presentations at the emergency department between July and September, up 28 (4.2 per cent) on 2017.
Bathurst Health Service general manager Cathy Marshall said the median waiting time for T2 presentations was up by one minute compared to the previous year, but said all other triage categories were starting treatment within mandated benchmarks.
“There were 6400 emergency presentations to the hospital during the quarter,” Ms Marshall said.
“The proportion of emergency patients whose treatment started on time increased by 13.7 percentage points to 88.5 per cent, 529 more patients than the same period last year.”
Meanwhile, the latest figures have revealed some good news for elective surgery waiting times.
The on-time treatment figures for the six main surgery categories at Bathurst Health Service were all running at, or close to, 100 per cent for the September quarter.
This included ear, nose and throat surgery (100 per cent); ophthalmology (100 per cent); urology (100 per cent); general surgery (99.3 per cent); orthopaedic surgery (99.1 per cent) and gynaecology (97.7 per cent).
“There were 522 elective surgeries performed, with an increase of 16.4 percentage points in the semi-urgent category especially, and waiting times remained stable, or improved across all categories,” Ms Marshall said.
Ms Marshall said Western NSW Local Health District was continuing to expand its workforce.
“Between mid-2012 and mid-2018 WNSW LHD has increased its workforce by an additional 278 full-time equivalent staff – an increase of 5.8 per cent including 65 more doctors and 72 more nurses,” she said.
“In 2018-19 the NSW Government is investing $22.9 billion in health - a $1.1 billion increase over (2017-18).”
