The release of the latest Bureau of Health Information (BHI) today confirms people in New South Wales are still waiting too long for an ambulance and too long in Emergency Departments with 1 in 10 patients spending longer than 22 hours in Emergency before discharge – the longest of any quarter since BHI reporting began.
Across the state:
- 60,000 patients or 1 in every 12 walked into an Emergency Department in the last 3 months and left without, or before completing treatment.
- More than one in three Priority 1A patients, that is people with life threatening conditions like cardiac or respiratory arrest, waited longer than the 10-minute target for an ambulance to arrive.
- Almost half of critical emergency patients did not start their treatment on time.
- Almost 100,000 people were on elective surgery waiting lists at the end of September, including close to 18,000 who had waited longer than clinical guidelines say they should.
These figures show the dire state of our health system. It’s not fair on our hardworking healthcare professionals to have to manage a system that is stretched to its limits.
For the last 12 years, our health system and the people who work in it have been neglected by the Liberals and Dominic Perrottet. New South Wales lost 365 hospital beds, and we have a shortage of nurses who are leaving the profession.
In the last year alone, 35 emergency department nurses left Westmead Hospital, and another 35 left Blacktown Hospital.
But Dominic Perrottet and the Liberals don’t get it. In response to the outpouring of concern about the state of our public hospitals from paramedics, to nurses to senior doctors in the bush and in the city – the Minister for Health declared – that if the conditions were so bad – perhaps the doctors should go and work in the third world.
In response to a question on the health system in crisis, Minister Hazzard said ‘Bullshit, there certainly is not. It’s the best health system in the country by a long shot!”
NSW Labor leader Chris Minns said:
“The wait times for ambulances and in our hospitals are now at record levels.”This is not a health system that is coping, after 12 years of under investment by the NSW Liberals. “It’s why NSW Labor will begin the long overdue task of repairing and reforming our health care system across New South Wales.
“We’ll introduce safe staffing levels in NSW hospitals, starting with EDs. It will help with workloads, it will take pressure of nurses and ensure they can treat patients with the care they deserve and need.
“Our nurses, hospital staff, paramedics and doctors need more support.
NSW Shadow Minister for Health Ryan Park said:
“This data does not paint a picture of a healthy system.”
“We have hospitals across the state and particularly in Western Sydney that are under continued pressure.
“Whether it is Nepean, Westmead or Blacktown, all major hospitals continue to show they are under resourced and struggling to cope with increased demand.