More than 2500 people were waiting for elective surgery at an “under pressure” Wagga Base Hospital, according to figures released by NSW Labor.
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NSW opposition spokesman for health, Walt Secord, was in the city on Monday as campaigning hots up for the by-election which is expected to be called if current Member for Wagga Daryl Maguire resigns this week.
The figures released by Labor – from Independent Bureau of Health Information data – showed that at the end of March, 2538 patients were waiting for elective surgery in Wagga. Of these, 2143 patients were waiting for non-urgent procedures.
The median wait for non-urgent elective surgery was 329 days – up from 314 days – a year ago, and 10 per cent of patients wait longer than 361 days for non-urgent elective surgery, according to the figures released by Labor.
Mr Secord said Wagga Base Hospital was one of the state’s most “under-pressure hospitals”, with some of the longest waits for non-urgent elective surgery in NSW.
“NSW has a health and hospital system under enormous pressure and Wagga Base Hospital is under pressure too,” Mr Secord said.
“The Liberals and Nationals have the wrong priorities; they would prefer to spend billions on stadiums in Sydney rather than properly supporting our health and hospital system – especially in rural and regional NSW.”
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Labor’s candidate for the by-election, Dan Hayes, said staff at Wagga Base Hospital were “doing their best”, but there were problems over nurse staffing levels, recurring budget problems; and the completion date for stage three of the redevelopment being pushed back by the Berejiklian Government.
“There is no point in announcing redevelopments if the hospital does not have the proper staffing levels,” Mr Hayes said.
Mr Secord said staff at the hospital were “working their guts out”.
“But they’re not being properly supported. You have nurses talking about the enormous pressure they are under,” he said.
In the January-March 2018 period, 10,297 patients visited the emergency department, according to Labor’s figures.
Almost a third – 32 per cent – of patients waited longer than four hours in Wagga’s emergency department, which was “well beyond” the national benchmark, Mr Secord said.
Ten per cent of patients waited at least 7 hours and 54 minutes in the emergency department, and five per cent of patients waited at six hours in the emergency department before the “patient left without, or before completing, treatment”.
In addition, 52 per cent of patients arriving at the emergency department are in the non-urgent categories, showing that families are under cost of living pressures as they are presenting with ailments that could be treated by a GP, Mr Secord said.
He was also critical of a decision not to locate a hydrotherapy pool on-site at the hospital and the "disaster” of parking.