'Challenging times': data shows hospital is under increasing pressure

The Bureau of Health Information (BHI) Quarterly Results from October to December 2022 show Mid North Coast Health District (MNCLHD) hospitals continue to deliver high quality care despite the sustained high demand.

Kempsey District Hospital had 6732 ED attendances between October and December last year.

This is a percentage drop of 0.2 per cent (16 attendances) when compared with the same quarter from the previous year.

According to the data, Kempsey District Hospital is the busiest in its peer group, which are hospitals grouped together of a similar size and has the third busiest ED in the MNCLHD.

The percentage of patients leaving Port Macquarie Base Hospital ED within four hours is 79.1 per cent, which is down 0.7 per cent from the same time the previous year.

This means 20.9 per cent of patients are waiting longer than four hours in ED.

Overall there were 36,030 attendances at MNCLHD EDs throughout the final quarter of 2022, which is an increase of 1.9 per cent (671 attendances).

68.8 per cent of attendances to ED across the health district left ED within four hours, which is down 4.7 per cent when compared with the same quarter the previous year.

However, it is above the NSW average of 58.4 per cent.

MNCLHD Chief Executive Stewart Dowrick thanked staff for their efforts throughout this period of high activity.

"I want to thank our staff who have worked exceptionally hard during these challenging times to continue to deliver high quality and compassionate care to our patients," he said.

"We thank the community for their patience during this busy time and want to reassure people that during periods of high demand, all patients are seen and triaged on arrival with the most seriously unwell patients treated first."

Across the health district, there were 18,438 patients in the semi-urgent (triage 4) and non-urgent (triage 5) categories (54 per cent).

MNCLHD performed 2702 elective surgeries in the October to December 2022 quarter, with almost all urgent elective surgery (99.8 per cent) performed on time.

"Our team continues to work hard to make inroads with our elective surgery program following temporary postponements across the state in the past three years due to COVID-19," Mr Dowrick said.

"Since January 2022, the District has been steadily performing more elective procedures. In the first quarter of 2022 we performed 2173 elective surgeries and that increased by 24.3 per cent - or 529 additional procedures - to 2702 elective surgeries in the final quarter of 2022."

MNCLHD continues to remind the community to save emergency departments and ambulances for saving lives.

If an illness or injury is not serious or life-threatening, we encourage people to call Healthdirect Australia on 1800 022 222, for 24-hour telephone health advice.

Any patients who feel their condition has deteriorated while waiting for their procedure are encouraged to contact their treating doctor for a clinical review and they can be placed in a higher urgency category if required.

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