Private hospitals offer help with waiting lists

The Government has been told it can cut waiting lists for heart surgery significantly by using private hospitals more often.

Figures released on Sunday showed 47 patients had been waiting more than the prescribed six months for cardiothoracic surgery at Wellington Hospital.

But the Private Hospitals Association says the waiting lists would not be excessive if the Government relied less on public hospitals.

"The private sector has the capacity to perform extra operations, including cardiac procedures, which the public sector simply does not have," association vice-president Michael Woodhouse said yesterday.

"I cannot see the logic of leaving people on waiting lists for long periods when there is the capacity in the private sector to [do] this surgery."

In September last year, after public pressure, the Capital and Coast District Health Board cut the number of people waiting six months for heart surgery to zero and vowed to keep waiting times down.

But the waiting list has grown steadily again this year. The average delay is now 6.9 months.

"Waiting lists may be a fact of life but the current system regularly creates delays for people who have made plans for surgery and who clinically require the surgery," Mr Woodhouse said.

"The Government must realise that a viable private sector is required in a country our size to support the public sector and that their ideological opposition to using the capacity and capability in the private sector is misplaced."

Wellington Hospital provides heart surgery for Nelson, Marlborough, Hutt Valley, Hawkes Bay, Wairarapa, Wanganui and Manawatu.

Capital and Coast spokeswoman Chris Lowry said on Sunday that the board was doing everything it could to reduce the waiting list. But efforts were being thwarted by a steady stream of acute cases forcing the postponement of less urgent operations.

In May, Wellington Hospital contracted out 16 operations to the private Wakefield Hospital.

- NZPA