Treatment delays are a major problem across the health system, including for cardiac surgery. Photo / 123rf.com
Treatment delays are a major problem across the health system, including for cardiac surgery. Photo / 123rf.com
More than half the patients awaiting cardiac surgery have waited too long, the latest statistics show.
People accepted for heart surgery are put in “urgency bands”. The most urgent should ideally be treated within 72 hours, “Band 2″ within 10 days, “Band 3″ between 11-30 days, and theleast urgent, “Band 4″, within 90 days.
Figures for the week ending December 8, 2024, released to the Herald under the Official Information Act, show patients in bands 1 and 2 receive surgery quickly.
However, those in Band 3 have faced delays. Nationally, 81% of such patients had waited beyond the recommended time.
Auckland City Hospital had the worst numbers, with 21 patients on the Band 3 list treated “inside timeframe”, and 114 who had waited too long. (Auckland’s data was from the end of October, as a new system meant newer figures were unavailable.)
In Band 4, 36% nationally of patients were overdue.
Across all urgency bands, 246 patients out of 443 were “outside timeframe”.
More than half of patients awaiting cardiac surgery have waited too long.
In releasing the information, Mary Clearly-Lyons, Health NZ-Te Whatu Ora’s director of national clinical networks, noted that “all hospital areas have patients waiting beyond expectation for treatment, particularly in urgency bands 3 and 4″.
“Each hospital area is focused on reducing the number of patients waiting beyond expectation. However, acute demand, capacity restrictions and a high volume of inflow limit the ability to reduce this cohort.
“Patients in bands 3 and 4 can be managed over a longer period than the suggested timeframe for treatment. Each hospital area utilises a clinical nurse specialist or equivalent clinical specialist who contacts long-waiting patients regularly and discusses a patient’s condition and any changes in presentation.
“In the event of a decline in health, a patient is reprioritised and their GP and surgeon advised accordingly. Hospital areas continue to focus on reducing wait times for cardiac patients with the goal to shorten time to surgery.”
Treatment delays are a major problem across the health system, as a strained workforce struggles to cope with increased demand, in part because of an ageing population.
Heart services - both cardiac surgery and cardiology - are among the most strained. In January 2023, heart surgery delays were so severe that officials prepared to brief the Health Minister about sending sick patients to Australia.
Health NZ dropped that option after opposition from clinicians. It has formed a group of clinical leaders from across the country to monitor wait times and shift patients between the hospitals able to do cardiac surgery: Auckland, Waikato, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin.
The latest minutes from that group were released to the Herald along with the wait list information.
Minutes from December 8 last year note an update from Auckland City Hospital that it is “still difficult to match output with input”, and that a strike “has had an impact on delivery”. Numbers were likely to drop soon because the volume of referrals had risen ahead of the holidays.
Waikato Hospital had reduced its wait list and was increasing outsourcing to private hospitals where possible. Capital & Coast, which covers Wellington, was “only treating acute patients to manage demand”. The longest-waiting patients had reduced but a high number of cancer patients was restricting cardiac surgery.
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