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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2008-10-14 Daily Xml
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ELECTIVE SURGERY

Mr PICCOLO (Light) (15:00): My question is for the Minister for Health. Can the minister advise the house what has been the effect of the recent state and federal strategies aimed at reducing the number of overdue patients on elective surgery waiting lists?

The Hon. J.D. HILL (Kaurna—Minister for Health, Minister for the Southern Suburbs, Minister Assisting the Premier in the Arts) (15:01): The cooperation between the state and the federal government has been tremendous when it comes to health, and this particular program is a very good example of what you can achieve when the federal and state governments work together. We have been working with the commonwealth, through its elective surgery waiting list reduction plan, to perform extra surgery in our hospitals. The aim is to ensure, as much as possible, that patients do not have to wait longer than the clinically recommended time for surgery. The commonwealth has provided our state with $13.6 million in this calendar year to perform 2,262 extra procedures. This funding is being used for operating theatres and equipment as well.

The state government has already committed an extra $55 million, of course, over four years (from 2006-07), to fund more elective surgery at a state level and a record number of 39,970 elective surgical procedures were undertaken in the 2007-08 year in our major metropolitan hospitals. That is 2,479 procedures (or 6.6 per cent) more than the previous year. It is also 4,384 procedures (or 12.3 per cent) more than the number undertaken by the former government in the calendar year 2002.

Today I also announce that in the nine months from January to September this year, metropolitan hospitals have performed an extra 1,949 procedures, compared with the same period last year (an increase of 6.9 per cent). And through the elective surgery campaign there has been a 51.3 per cent reduction in the number of overdue patients between September 2007 and September this year, most notably at the Women's and Children's Hospital. The number of overdue surgical patients was cut from 144 in September last year to six in September this year (a drop of 96 per cent). The Repat Hospital cut its number of overdue surgical patients by more than three-quarters, from 436 in September last year to 105 this year (a 76 per cent drop). There was also a 67 per cent drop at the Flinders Medical Centre, a 32 per cent drop at the Royal Adelaide Hospital and a 25 per cent drop at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital as well.

At the start of this elective surgery blitz, we signalled that we may engage the private sector to undertake some procedures and we have had strong success so far without needing to do that. However, there are some specific waiting lists that we can reduce more quickly. That is why it is now our intention to work with the private sector on a small scale to deliver about another 200 procedures in some specialties, such as urology, general surgery and plastics. Such an approach has been successful in other states and we think it will be a useful trial in South Australia.

Looking forward, a further $8.1 million has been committed by the commonwealth for stage 2 of the elective surgery reduction plan. South Australia will receive about $3.1 million in 2008-09 and $5 million in 2009-10. These funds will be aimed at assisting hospitals to increase elective surgery capacity. They will fund capital and minor works, including theatre fit-outs, the extension of 23-hour wards, and equipment replacements. I take this opportunity to thank very sincerely the staff, the doctors and nurses and other staff in the hospitals, who have been a key part of reaching the results achieved in the last financial year. Some of the staff obviously have had to do extra sessions, and it has been pleasing that, despite all of the other things that have been happening in the health system over the last year, they have had these very good outcomes.

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