TAMWORTH hospital has cut wait times for eye surgeries while emergency times have remained stable.
The timely figures come from the latest Bureau of Health Information’s first quarterly report for 2018.
Almost 10 weeks were sliced off the median wait time for ophthalmic surgeries, while cataract removal procedures took 19 days off in the same measure.
READ MORE:
- October 2017: More than 1000 eye-related procedures were on the wait list and Hunter New England regional health director Susan Heyman says the hospital is looking to cut wait times.
- Tamworth hospital patients waiting longer for surgery
- Tamworth hospital surgery wait lists grow, while emergency wait times drop
The number of people waiting for ophthalmic surgeries at the end of March came down by five per cent too.
Overall, the surgery wait list was slashed by two per cent from the same time last year.
In the Emergency Department (ED), 73.8 per cent of people waited less than four hours for treatment.
This figure has dropped since the same time in 2017 when 75.3 per cent of people were treated in less than four hours.
Hunter New England Health chief executive Michael DiRienzo said there was always a high demand on the hospitals, especially in the ED.
Mr DiRienzo said 98 percent of all elective surgeries were performed on time across the local health district.
Of these, 99.9 percent of urgent surgeries, 98 percent of semi-urgent surgeries and 97.2 percent of non-urgent surgeries were performed on time.
“Tamworth Hospital has also maintained an excellent surgery performance with 99.7 per cent of procedures performed within the specified timeframe,” he said.
“The hospital continues to monitor all wait lists every day and is working hard to ensure people receive their surgery sooner.”
This performance across all categories is better than the state average.
Jacob McArthur
Jacob McArthur is opinions editor for The Canberra Times and Australian Community Media. As part of the Canberra Times' production team, he helps the people of Canberra and beyond get the stories they need, when they need them across a range of platforms, while helping maintain a high editorial standard. Before moving to Canberra in 2020, he started with Australian Community Media in 2015 as a journalist for The Northern Daily Leader in Tamworth where he kept a close eye on Tamworth Regional Council. Jacob was also the co-host of ACM's Water Pressure podcast where he and Jamieson Murphy took a deep dive on issues and key decisions arising during one of the region's worst droughts on record.
Jacob McArthur is opinions editor for The Canberra Times and Australian Community Media. As part of the Canberra Times' production team, he helps the people of Canberra and beyond get the stories they need, when they need them across a range of platforms, while helping maintain a high editorial standard. Before moving to Canberra in 2020, he started with Australian Community Media in 2015 as a journalist for The Northern Daily Leader in Tamworth where he kept a close eye on Tamworth Regional Council. Jacob was also the co-host of ACM's Water Pressure podcast where he and Jamieson Murphy took a deep dive on issues and key decisions arising during one of the region's worst droughts on record.
