November 2009

Hospitals beat swine flu toll to treat more patients

Victorian public hospitals have continued to improve their performance over the past year despite the impact of swine flu on the health system.

Releasing the Your Hospitals report for the 2008–09 year, Health Minister Daniel Andrews said hospitals and health services were treating record numbers of patients needing emergency care and elective surgery and treating them faster.

‘Despite the toll of swine flu, our hospitals—and particularly their emergency departments—have maintained or improved levels of performance across key indicators.

‘More than 19,000 extra patients attended emergency departments in May and June this year—an 8.6 per cent increase compared with the previous year—as the impact of swine flu spread through the community.

‘Hospital staff did a tremendous job coping with the increased demand and I want to thank them for their efforts.

‘More than 1,355,400 patients attended 24-hour emergency departments in 2008–09.’

Mr Andrews said the State Government’s elective surgery blitz in conjunction with the Federal Government had enabled an extra 17,389 patients to receive their operations compared with last year.

‘In the 18 months to June 2009, an additional 11 per cent or more than 21,000 elective surgery procedures were performed.

‘Nearly 42,000 Category 1 patients requiring elective surgery had their surgeries in 2008–09—more than half of them within seven days and the remainder within the recommended 30 days.

‘Of those patients still waiting for surgery at the end of June, more than half would have received their operations by now as hospitals continue to work through their waiting lists with a $45 million boost from this year’s State Budget.’

Mr Andrews said hospitals met five of the nine key performance criteria set by the Government including:

• Going on bypass 2.6 per cent of the time, well inside the three per cent target;

• Treating 100 per cent of Category 1 emergency department patients within the recommended time;

• Treating 82 per cent of Category 2 ED patients within the recommended time, exceeding the 80 per cent target;

• Treating 100 per cent of urgent elective surgery patients within the recommended time;

• Treating 92 per cent of non-urgent elective patients within the recommended time exceeding the 90 per cent target.

Mr Andrews said the State’s critical care services had performed exceptionally well despite providing an extra 75 hours of intensive care treatment each day—a significant 6.8 per cent increase from last year.

‘Our intensive and critical care staff do a fantastic job treating some of our most vulnerable patients.’

Hospitals equalled or improved on their performance in three other indicators:

• They treated 72 per cent of Category 3 ED patients within 30 minutes—up from 68 per cent;

• They transferred 67 per cent of admitted emergency patients to a ward within eight hours—equal to last year;

• They admitted 73 per cent of elective surgery Category 2 patients within 90 days—up from 70 per cent last year.

Mr Andrews said Victorian hospitals continued to rate highly against other states, as reported in Commonwealth publications such as the State of our Public Hospitals and Australian Hospital Statistics.

‘Hospitals admitted 1,420,788 patients in 2008–09—an increase of 27,608 people or two per cent compared with the previous year.

‘Total bed days increased by 32,617 days.’

Mr Andrews said there were 38,391 people waiting for elective surgery at the end of June this year, nearly five per cent fewer patients than were listed at the end of June, 1999.

‘More than 1.2 million elective surgery procedures have been performed since 2000 and the Government continues to implement initiatives to reducing waiting times.

‘We have committed a further $45 million this year to boost elective surgery throughput in our hospitals, building on the $60 million provided through the joint waiting list blitz last year.’

Mr Andrews said the Government had committed more than $683 million in this year’s State Budget to rebuild and refurbish hospitals across the state and provide health services with the latest equipment.

‘We’re also continuing to grow Victoria’s health workforce.

‘This report shows an extra 3150 doctors and 10,516 additional nurses have been recruited to the public health system in the 10 years to June 2009,’ Mr Andrews said.