| Publication: | The Sydney Morning Herald |
|---|---|
| Date: | 10 March 2009 |
Louise Hall and Kate Benson, 10 March 2009
ELECTIVE surgery at some NSW hospitals will stop over Easter as health bureaucrats try to save money.
NSW Health said the March/April operating theatre "consolidation period" was longer than in recent years because the school holidays began immediately after the Easter public holidays, and staff wanted to take annual leave.
The staff shortage was compounded by the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons exam period, which would take a number of surgical registrars off rosters, said the deputy director-general of health system performance, Tim Smyth.
The prolonged closures apply to all but emergency surgery and is likely to lengthen elective surgery waiting lists. There were 56,996 people on the waiting list at the end of last year, the worst December result for four years.
Yesterday the Minister for Health, John Della Bosca, said the State Government had spent millions of dollars to cut the number of patients waiting more than 12 months. The addition of $43.3 million from the Federal Government had also delivered more than an extra 12,000 procedures in NSW last year.
"Four years ago, there were more than 10,000 people waiting longer than a year for their non-urgent surgery. In December it was down to 157 people," Mr Della Bosca said.
The Opposition spokeswoman for health, Jillian Skinner, said the data did not include patients waiting longer than 12 months because their operation had to be rescheduled.
Several hospitals in Sydney West Area Health Service, including Nepean and Westmead, will have elective surgery cut or reduced from April 20 to May 18.
A general surgeon at Nepean Hospital, Patrick Cregan, said non-urgent surgery was typically the first area to be cut when administrators faced budgetary problems.
"I'm concerned about the effect on the rest of the year. There's a very real risk of a significant reduction in elective surgery and waiting times might start to blow out," he said.
Yesterday several area health services told the Herald that the extent of elective-surgery shutdowns across their hospitals were still being worked out.
Casual nursing shifts at Royal Prince Alfred, Concord, Liverpool and Canterbury hospitals have been cut to six hours to cut costs.
A spokesman for Sydney South West Area Health Service said the move was designed to avoid "doubling up of expensive agency and casual nursing staff during the 1½- to two-hour crossover period between the morning and afternoon shifts during which time they are not required". He said permanent staff would be not affected.
The president of the Australian Medical Association, Rosanna Capolingua, said the Rudd Government-funded elective surgery blitz last year proved that the public health system had the capacity to service the growing, and aging, population if it was properly funded.
"If you throw money at the system, you can increase theatre operating hours because you have the capacity to pay nurses and theatre staff to work longer shifts and a doctor can get in more knee surgeries, cataracts, hip operations," she said.
But she said the blitz was achieved through "expensive and inefficient" methods, such as contracting surgery out to the private sector and opening theatres on weekends.
"What is needed is money underpinning elective surgery all the time rather than one-off injections of funds."
