AT this year's state budget, the government announced a "record" health budget of almost $27 billion, comprised of "a massive" $2.7 billion in capital works and $24 billion in recurrent spending.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The recurrent funding would help provide an extra 8000 paediatric operations and 10,000 cataract surgeries over four years, Health Minister Brad Hazzard said on budget day last month. All up, the government was promising an extra 8300 new staff over four years, with 45 per cent of those employees to be working in the regions.
Last year it was $25 billion - including $2.3 billion in capital works - with a promise of 1370 more health staff including 950 nurses, 300 medical practitioners and 120 allied health professionals.
Despite all of this apparently extra money, anecdotal evidence indicates our hospitals are bulging at the seams, unable to cope with a steadily increasing and ageing population.
One of the obvious pressure points is elective surgery, where waiting lists have waxed and waned over the years as successive governments try new ways to either fix the problem, or to massage the lists in such a way that the official numbers look less embarrassing.
As we are reporting today, John Hunter Hospital's official waiting list for elective surgery was 2979 in March this year, with 2222 of those people waiting for nominally "non-urgent" procedures including cataract removal and hip and knee replacement.
For someone in pain, there is nothing "non-urgent" about the need for a knee replacement, for example.
Unfortunately for those in need of help, a Newcastle Herald freedom-of-information request has revealed that the official waiting lists are literally the tip of an iceberg. In order to make the waiting list, patients must first be assessed in an outpatient clinic. These previously hidden numbers - more than 12,000 in 2017 and 13,000 last year - are literally four times the size of the total that Hunter New England Health discloses to the public.
To its credit, Hunter Health acknowledges the stress on a system that GPs describe as overrun. Those with private insurance can avoid these delays, but there is something fundamentally wrong when people needing to see a specialist are left waiting months or even years for attention.
ISSUE: 39,355.
While you're with us, did you know The Herald is now offering breaking news alerts, daily email newsletters and more? Keep up-to-date with all the local news - sign up here.
Ian Kirkwood
Reporting journalist at the Newcastle Herald since 1987. Editorial writer, general reporter, industrial relations, industry and coal.
Reporting journalist at the Newcastle Herald since 1987. Editorial writer, general reporter, industrial relations, industry and coal.
