By Cam Lucadou-Wells
Is Dandenong Hospital’s performance rising or falling?
Well, it depends on how you read the just-released official hospital performance data.
The Government points to performance gains in elective surgery and ambulance responses over the past three months.
But things have worsened in the emergency department since four years ago, the Opposition says.
Since March, the hospital’s elective surgery waiting list, has shrunk from 1446 to 1360, states the Government.
Elective surgery admissions were up, with 100 per cent of urgent-category patients seen within the 30-day benchmark.
Most were within seven days.
The average ambulance response times to Code One emergencies has hastened from 10 minutes, 42 seconds to 9 minutes, 40 seconds in the past year, the Government claims.
“Elective waiting lists are shrinking and ambulances are arriving faster to Code One emergencies in Dandenong faster,” Health Minister Jill Hennessey said.
“The Liberals cut a billion dollars from health and went to war with paramedics – performance data was so bad that they stopped releasing it.”
However the Opposition states emergency department waiting times remain short of the state’s benchmark.
Since 2014, waiting times in the emergency department were up from nine minutes to 19, they say.
About 4700 people waited longer than clinically recommended for emergency treatment at Dandenong Hospital in the last quarter.
Elective surgery patients are waiting two weeks longer than in 2014.
“These aren’t just figures, they’re people’s lives,” opposition health spokeswoman Mary Wooldridge said.
“Daniel Andrews has failed to make the investment needed at Dandenong Hospital to ensure patients can access care in a timely manner.”
