WA performs well in The State of Our Public Hospitals report
Western Australia's public hospitals performed strongly in The State of Our Public Hospitals report released nationally today.
WA Health Acting Director General Kim Snowball said the report showed that WA performed well in key areas such as elective surgery admissions and emergency department wait times.
"WA Health is treating more patients than ever before and we are focussed on meeting growing demand by increasing activity while continuing to improve the quality of care," Mr Snowball said.
The report gives a snapshot of hospital activity and performance for 2008- 2009.
During this time in Western Australia’s 94 public hospitals there were:
- 60,398 elective surgery admissions
- 783,294 emergency department presentations
"WA ranked third highest on the percentage of elective surgery patients who received their surgery within the recommended wait times at 85.6 per cent," he said.
"The median wait time for elective surgery patients was the second lowest in the nation at 31 days."
During 2008-2009 WA undertook initiatives to reduce the number of long wait patients on the elective surgery wait list. Only 2 per cent of patients were on the wait list for longer than 365 days which ranked WA second lowest in the country.
"Not only is WA treating record numbers of elective surgery patients but we are doing it quicker than all of the other states and territories bar one."
Mr Snowball said the report showed that 62 per cent of emergency department patients were seen within the recommended wait time.
"One of the key health gaps for WA is a lack of GPs; WA has the worst GP to population ratio of any state," he said.
"This reflected in part by WA's busiest public hospital Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital had 79,392 admissions.
Media contact: (08) 9222 4333
The State of Our Public Hospitals report is available from the Department of Health and Ageing (external site)
