Charlotte Curd/Stuff
Te Whatu Ora Southern group director of operations Hamish Brown says an ageing population has resulted in an increased demand for joint surgeries. (File photo)
An ageing population and the rurality of Southland and Otago are behind the district having some of the longest surgery wait times in the country.
This is according to Te Whatu Ora Southern group director of operations Hamish Brown, who was addressing Te Whatu Ora’s clinical performance metrics for the first quarter of 2023/24 that showed the district had 655 patients waiting longer than a year for surgery – the second-highest number behind Canterbury, which had 955 patients waiting more than 12 months.
Brown said 330 of those 655 patients were waiting for orthopaedic surgery – in other words, bone and joint operations.
“In the south, because of the ageing population, there is an increasing demand for joint replacement as people are more active at an elderly age. This puts pressure on both our orthopaedic services.”
These surgeries are often complex and need more theatre time, Brown said, and surgeons have previously pointed out that they tend to fall off the list when theatre space is needed for more urgent, life-preserving services.
“Southern covers the largest area of all the districts, and it faces challenges with the rurality of our population alongside challenges such as an ageing population, resources and workforce.”
“The elective and acute surgical pressure on our hospitals together with significant workforce shortage makes improving performance metrics challenging, but we are pleased the number of Southern patients waiting longer than 365 days for surgery is trending downwards, and we are grateful to our hard-working teams who have achieved this.”
The 655 patients in Southland and Otago is down from 727 in the same quarter in the previous year (2022), but up from the 375 patients who had been waiting longer than 365 days in September 2021.
Breakfast
Orthopaedic surgeon Haemish Crawford is calling for Te Whatu Ora to give people more realistic time frames for surgery wait times. (First published April 5, 2023)
Brown said Te Whatu Ora was committed to improving performance, and plans to increase capacity included using all possible outsourcing opportunities.
“For example, Timaru Hospital has been supporting our orthopaedic service and operates on about 110 of our patients per year, and we are working with them to increase that number.”
Health systems worldwide were still dealing with the fallout from the Covid-19 pandemic, he said, but people living longer were also more likely to develop long-term chronic conditions that required hospital care.
