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Elective surgery wait hits 3yr high

In the queue: The elective surgery wait list has hit a 3yr high. Picture: Michael O'Brien/The West Australian

Perth's hospital reconfiguration has been blamed for the highest number of West Australians waiting for elective surgery in at least three years.

WA Health Department figures show 17,662 people queued for surgery at public hospitals last month - 1450 more cases than at the same time last year.

The average waiting time blew out to 2.47 months - up from 2.3 months in January last year - and 6.8 per cent of patients were waiting longer than medically recommended compared with 2.7 per cent a year earlier. There was also a fall in the number of operations carried out, with 4725 done last month compared with 5869 in January last year.

Doctors said the surge was related to the opening of Fiona Stanley Hospital and moving surgical specialties from Royal Perth and Fremantle hospitals.

Australian Medical Association WA president Michael Gannon said even if hospitals did more surgery, it was hard for them to keep their heads above water. "But there is no doubt the hospital reconfiguration is causing a temporary blip in efficiencies and that's before you even consider the problems they're having at Fiona Stanley Hospital because of the sterilisation issue, which we know has slowed down the theatre input," he said.

Dr Gannon said the surge in waiting list numbers also reflected the increasing demand year-on-year because of the ageing population and more chronic diseases such as obesity.

Rising private health insurance premiums could make the job of reducing the list even harder if people abandoned or downgraded their policies.

Shadow health minister Roger Cook said the marked increase in the elective surgery waitlist and waiting times was a sign of a minister asleep at the wheel.

"The number of patients on the waitlist has jumped by almost 1500 patients in just one month to over 17,600 and patients are now waiting longer than they were a year ago," he said.

"You have to make sure hospitals are seeing as many patients as possible and you have to keep a lid on the numbers."

Health Minister Kim Hames conceded that rescheduling some non-life threatening elective surgery procedures was part of the preparations for the transition of patients, staff and services to FSH.

"But in reality all public hospitals have been part of the reconfiguration and it was expected that numbers would go up," Dr Hames said.

"As soon as they are functioning as normal, I'd expect the figures to return to previous levels."