Victoria’s most ill and seriously injured patients continued to receive immediate and high-quality care in hospitals and health services across the State, according to December‘s quarter health service and ambulance performance data.
Minister for Health and Ambulance Services, Martin Foley said more than 43,000 elective surgery patients received their operations and came off the waiting list in the three-month reporting period.
“The report shows 100 per cent of the most seriously ill and injured Category One emergency patients were treated immediately upon arrival at hospital in the December quarter,” Mr Foley said.
“And 100 per cent of the most urgent Category One elective surgery patients received their operations within the benchmark 30 days, half of them within 11 days,” he said.
“Moving into COVIDNormal has enabled hospitals to tackle the backlog of Category Two and Three elective surgery, which had been cancelled as hospitals geared up to deal with the pandemic.”
Mr Foley said hospitals were busier in the December quarter than they were at the peak of the pandemic, having admitted 476,191 patients up to 31 December, 47,583 more than in the September quarter.
The Minister said hospitals also saw 447,181 patients go through emergency departments, up by 83,979 on the previous three months.
“While Victoria’s paramedics also had to perform their roles under extra pressure, donning full PPE while treating potential or suspected coronavirus cases, ambulances still arrived at 79.3 per cent of Code One emergency call-outs within the benchmark 15 minutes, reaching scenes in an average 12 minutes and 16 seconds,” he said.
“Ambulance Victoria also saw an extra 10,000 call-outs, with 78,653 calls for the December quarter, compared with 68,667 in the previous three months,” Mr Foley said.
The State’s December quarter health service and ambulance performance data can be accessed on the Victorian Agency for Health Information’s (VAHI) website at this PS News link.
