BATHURST, Orange and Dubbo’s public hospitals are completing all their urgent “category one” surgeries within the recommended 30 days, new statistics show.
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The latest Australian Institute of Health and Welfare report, Elective surgery waiting times 2017–18: Australian hospital statistics, showed the public hospitals in Bathurst, Orange and Dubbo performed all their category one surgeries within the recommended timeframe.
Orange Hospital was the best among the three hospitals.
It performed more surgeries (694) compared with Bathurst Hospital (370) and Dubbo Hospital (608).
Orange Hospital also had a smaller median waiting time.
Patients waited for eight days for category one surgery in Orange compared with 14 days in Bathurst and 16 days in Dubbo.
The median waiting time at Dubbo Hospital was the lowest (40 days) compared with Orange (43 days) and Bathurst (46 days).
For semi-urgent or category two surgeries, which are recommended within 92 days, Orange again had a 100 per cent success rate, whereas Bathurst and Dubbo hospitals had 99 per cent each.
Dubbo performed the most (1272) category two surgeries, followed by Orange (1192) and Bathurst (781).
The median waiting time at Dubbo Hospital was the lowest (40 days) compared with Orange (43 days) and Bathurst (46 days).
The Western New South Wales Local Health District (WNSWLHD) received $976,000 in funding last year for additional surgery as part of the additional $3 million provided by the NSW Government for the increasing access to elective surgery initiative 2017.
The WNSWLHD provides health services in Bathurst, Orange, Dubbo and most of the Central West.
The current budget (2018-19) for the local health district has also registered an increase of $40 million on 2017-18.
The NSW Government says it is investing a record $22.9 billion in health, representing a $1.1 billion increase over the 2017-18 budget.
Of the $22.9 billion, $19.2 billion is for improving services in public hospitals in 2018-19.