Transcript - Hospital waiting lists
Reinstating 50-50 federal-state funding for public hospitals will help alleviate elective surgery waiting lists, Dr Nick Yim told ABC Brisbane.
Transcript: AMA Queensland Vice President, Dr Nick Yim, ABC Brisbane, Mornings with Rebecca Levingston, Wednesday 28 June 2023
Subjects: Hospital waiting lists, healthcare workforce plan
REBECCA LEVINGSTON: The Australian Medical Association has revealed some new figures today with regards to wait lists for surgery. Dr Nick Yim is Vice President at the AMA Queensland. Nick, good morning.
DR NICK YIM: Good morning, Rebecca.
REBECCA LEVINGSTON: What is the wait list like for elective surgery in Queensland?
DR NICK YIM: In Queensland, especially in the public sector, wait lists are getting longer, especially for elective surgeries like as you say, for hips, knees, for those elective surgeries that are urgent because people are in pain, reduced mobility, they might be falling. It is getting extensive. And I have patients who’ve been waiting for months to years and they're struggling.
REBECCA LEVINGSTON: The figures out from your federal body today show that 293,000 people are waiting for elective surgeries. I gather that's nationally, is it?
DR NICK YIM: Yeah, that's nationally. But I think this is a sign that the funding arrangements at the moment are just not up to scratch. This is a great opportunity for both levels of government, state and federal government, to renegotiate a plan because we know that our population is getting older, it's getting sicker and we have to access those public hospitals. And the wait times are just unacceptable.
REBECCA LEVINGSTON: Well, the other figure that's key is an additional 395,000 people are waiting to get a specialist appointment. That's the step before they're even at that surgical step. Where does Queensland sit in the backlog? Like, are we any better or worse than other states?
DR NICK YIM: It's quite variable. It's dependent on specialty to specialty. Waitlists for ear, nose, throat in the public sector is quite lengthy, likewise with orthopaedics. AMA Queensland has been calling on our Queensland Government to develop a health workforce plan moving forward. So that includes your public hospital, private hospital, aged care and also general practice to know where we need to have our doctors, nurses, allied health and pharmacists across the whole state, because without the workforce we can't service our community.
REBECCA LEVINGSTON: If you've got people waiting for hips and knees on the public wait list, you said months, even years in some cases, are people flipping then and trying to go private?
DR NICK YIM: A lot of my patients are seeking a quote, for example, to see a specialist in the private sector. They might be accessing maybe their retirement funds as well to access their surgeries just to expedite that list. This is the discussion I have as a general practitioner, to ensure that if people are thinking about dropping their health insurance, just to reconsider.
REBECCA LEVINGSTON: You're listening to Dr Nick Yim, the Vice President at the Australian Medical Association Queensland. New analysis by the AMA showed that as of April this year, more than 293,000 people are waiting for elective surgeries nationally and close to 400,000 are waiting for a specialist appointment.
We are sort of re-emerging from the COVID period, Nick, into a time where hopefully things are back to running closer to normal. What else would you like to see accelerated in order to get people the surgery that they need?
DR NICK YIM: It's multifaceted. One thing that we are advocating for is that 50-50 funding agreement between the state and the federal government. Obviously, we need that funding to come in to ensure that we have that increased workforce. We've been always calling for beds, but at the same time we need that workforce to work for those beds as well for that community.
At the same time, you did mention COVID. We are getting our neck out of COVID and we need to stop blaming COVID for the logjam that we're facing, but also a reminder to our community that we are in winter. Obviously, we have seen an increase in influenza and we don't want to be filling our hospital beds with flu cases so we can ensure that we can have other things to be treated, such as those elective surgeries if possible.
REBECCA LEVINGSTON: And also, if you've got the flu, you can't have your surgery.
DR NICK YIM: Correct.
REBECCA LEVINGSTON: Nick, all right, we'll keep in touch. Thanks so much.
