{"id":33136,"date":"2025-06-13T00:43:31","date_gmt":"2025-06-12T14:43:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/?p=33136"},"modified":"2025-06-13T00:43:31","modified_gmt":"2025-06-12T14:43:31","slug":"surgery-wait-times-continue-to-skyrocket","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/2025\/06\/13\/surgery-wait-times-continue-to-skyrocket\/","title":{"rendered":"Surgery wait times continue to skyrocket"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>New independent health data shows waiting times for surgery continues to skyrocket under the Minns Labor Government.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At the end of the March quarter \u2013&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>8,587 patients were waiting longer than clinically recommended \u2013 up 151.3% compared with the end of March 2024.\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>100,678 patients were on the waiting list \u2013 up 7.34% and close to the record peak during the COVID-19 pandemic (101,024) when elective surgeries were paused.\u00a0\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Leader of the Opposition Mark Speakman said Chris Minns and Ryan Park are great at spin, but their quotes don\u2019t clear EDs, cut surgery waitlists or get ambulances to emergencies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Chris Minns had driven surgery wait times back to their pandemic peak.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Chris Minns has cut the health budget two years in a row after inflation, he\u2019s picked fights with doctors, nurses and midwives and he\u2019s let surgery wait times skyrocket,\u201d Mr Speakman said.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Shadow Health Minister Kellie Sloane said&nbsp;this data confirms what clinicians already know \u2013 the system is overstretched, under-resourced, and patients are paying the price.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThe spike in urgent elective surgery wait-times in the last year by more than 5000, is deeply concerning and should be a wakeup call for the Minister.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThis isn\u2019t just a blowout in wait times \u2013 it\u2019s a breakdown in patient care. Behind every one of those patients waiting longer than clinically recommend is someone in pain, waiting for a diagnosis or trying to restore some quality of life,\u201d Ms Sloane said.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;Shadow Minister for Regional Health Gurmesh Singh said NSW now has the longest median wait in Australia for elective surgery across all urgency categories combined.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThe latest data shows 2,092 patients in rural hospitals waited longer than clinically recommend for surgery in the March quarter \u2013 a whopping 1,479 increase compared to June last year.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Patients are waiting too long for important surgery in regional NSW and it was time Chris Minns offered up solutions instead of his usual spin,\u201d Mr Singh said.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Background<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>In the 2022-23 Budget, the Coalition invested $408 million over two years to tackle planned surgeries delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, bringing the former Government\u2019s total investment to reduce wait time to almost $1 billion.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>That $408 million investment saw the COVID-19 surgery backlog fall from September 2022 to December 2023 when NSW Health officials confirmed the funding ended.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Prior to COVID-19, the number of patients waiting for overdue surgeries never rose above 1,144.\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>8,587 patients on the waiting list had waited longer than clinically recommended \u2013 up 151.3% compared with the end of March 2024.\u00a0\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>There were 100,678 patients on the waiting list \u2013 up 7.3% and close to the record peak during the COVID-19 pandemic (101,024).\u00a0\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The median waiting time for patients who received semi-urgent surgery was 65 days \u2013 up 9 days.\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The median waiting time for patients who received non urgent surgery was 322 days \u2013 up 32 days from the same quarter a year earlier.\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>2,092 patients waited longer than clinically recommended for surgery in rural hospitals \u2013 (613 patients in June 2024)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>New independent health data shows waiting times for surgery continues to skyrocket under the Minns Labor Government.&nbsp; At the end of the March quarter \u2013&nbsp; Leader of the Opposition Mark Speakman said Chris Minns and Ryan Park are great at spin, but their quotes don\u2019t clear EDs, cut surgery waitlists or get ambulances to emergencies. &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/2025\/06\/13\/surgery-wait-times-continue-to-skyrocket\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Surgery wait times continue to skyrocket&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nswnews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33136"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33136\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33137,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33136\/revisions\/33137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}