Children are waiting days for elective surgeries at Sydney’s children’s hospitals as the health crisis worsens across Australia.
Thousands of children were on elective surgery wait lists for the Sydney Children’s Hospital at Westmead and Randwick at the end of September, according to Bureau of Health Information (BHI) data.
The BHI data also found that nearly 1000 children had their surgeries delayed beyond recommended timeframes.
The wait list for sick children needing complex surgeries at the Children’s Hospital Westmead have also blown out.
Former Children’s Hospital Westmead senior staff specialist anaesthetist Dr Peter Gibson told the Sydney Morning Herald “operating theaters were just lying in mothballs”.
“Instead of opening and staffing them properly they have outsourced the [surgery] lists to the private sector, which ends up costing a lot more than if the hospital would just employ more staff specialists to run the operating theatres.”
The paper also reports the average wait for urgent elective surgery is five days, while in one example a child had to wait three weeks.Herald also reports the average wait for urgent elective surgery is five days, while in one example a child had to wait three weeks.
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A leading critical care nurse previously told 9News that day-to-day work at hospitals across Melbourne was “hectic and chaotic”.
Kate Hoskin warned hospital waiting rooms were also constantly full.
“A number of my colleagues talk about having anxiety approaching their work day or on their way to work,” she said.
“It’s always a gamble walking into an emergency department, you never really know what you are going to walk into before the shift, but every day these days the corridor’s just fully lined with paramedics.
“There is a never-ending queue for triage, like out the door where people are waiting to be checked in essentially for up to 45 minutes or more.”
