Sarah Courtney,Minister for Health
The Hodgman majority Liberal Government is committed to building a better health system for Tasmanians.
This is why we fought so hard to have the Morrison Liberal government bring forward funding for more elective surgery and more endoscopies.
The $20 million, originally over four years, will see $15 million available immediately to help thousands more Tasmanians to get elective surgeries and endoscopies, ensuring patients who have been waiting the longest receive treatment more quickly.
The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare has today released its Elective Surgery Waiting Times 2018-19: Australian Hospital Statistics report on individual hospital performances.
Tasmania continued to see high demand for elective surgery, with the number of people added to the waiting list last financial year more than 3,000 greater than five years ago.
Despite this growth, we have reduced the average excessive waiting time for the longest waiting non-urgent patients by 82 per cent (from 531 days longer than clinically recommended in March 2014, to 95 days longer than recommended in June 2019.)
We are continuing to focus on providing better care for Tasmanians, and that is why we have worked hard to bring forward Commonwealth money.
On top of this we will by then have opened the Royal Hobart Hospital's new state-of-the-art K-Block building, a project that will provide world class facilities to support our clinicians to provide even better care.
Visit www.aihw.gov.au/ to see the full report.
