By Cam Lucadou-Wells
After 12 months of deteriorating performance, emergency wait times at Dandenong Hospital have shown signs of recovery.
However, the latest quarterly data from the Victorian Agency of Health Information released on Friday 28 October still shows a health system under pressure.
In July-September 2022, patients were waiting less time for treatment than the previous quarter at Dandenong Hospital ED.
But more patients were staying in the ED for longer than 24 hours.
In the July quarter, 51 patients stayed more than a day in the emergency unit – up from 46 in March-June and just six a year ago.
Also, a higher rate of non-admitted patients were languishing in the ED for over four hours.
The 90th percentile waiting time for treatment at Dandenong ED dropped to slightly more than two hours (126 minutes).
This was nine minutes shorter than in March-July 2022.
The average was still 33 minutes longer than the same period 12 months ago.
Median treatment times dropped from 30 minutes to 23 minutes. This was back to near-par with 12 months previously.
Ambulance transfer median times were down from 33 minutes to 32 minutes. At the same time, ambulance presentation numbers were down 8.5 per cent.
Elective surgery times also dropped for category 2 (semi-urgent) patients from 168 days to 154 days, though 63 per cent still waited beyond the 90-day benchmark.
In July-September, Dandenong Hospital discharged 16.236 patients, up by 6 per cent.
Emergency patients were slightly up, totalling 7,097.
The hospital was recently one of 12 major hospitals that received extra specialist staff to improve patient flow and access to elective surgery.
Dandenong MP Gabrielle Williams said the pandemic had affected care for patients around Australia.
“Monash Health is working closely with the Dandenong community to make sure they continue to get the care they deserve, with median wait times in the hospital falling over the past quarter.
“We recognise how stressful waiting for planned surgery can be for patients – that’s why we’re delivering the $1.5 billion Covid Catch Up Plan to make sustainable long-term changes to support Victoria’s surgery capacity now and into the future.”
