An extra quarter of a billion dollars has been announced for the Department of Health so that hospitals can catch up on their backlog of elective surgery.
All non-urgent surgeries were halted in March because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk said Queensland Health had responded to the pandemic by concentrating all necessary resources on keeping Queenslanders safe.
“We had to prepare for the worst-case scenario that we have seen play out in China, Italy, the United Kingdom and the United States,” Ms Palaszczuk said.
“We supported the Prime Minister’s move to suspend non-urgent procedures nation-wide as we prepared for an onslaught of tens of thousands of cases and thousands of deaths — but thanks to the efforts of our community, that did not become a reality for Queensland or Australia.”
Minister for Health, Steven Miles said Category Two and Three procedures covered less urgent elective surgery and it was clinically recommended that Category Two procedures occurred within 90 days and Category Three within 365 days.
“Suspending Category Two and Three elective surgeries in Queensland — around 50 per cent of all elective surgery activity — was an important step in freeing up capacity and resources for our pandemic response,” Mr Miles said.
“We knew this would have a major impact, so we brought forward those we could during February and March.”
He said as of 1 June, there were 52,240 patients ready for their surgery on elective surgery lists — more than 90 per cent of whom were waiting within clinically recommended timeframes.
“However, our modelling indicates that we could potentially have more than 7,000 people waiting longer than clinically recommended by 1 July 2020 as a result of the pandemic,” Mr Miles said.
“As part of the $250 million funding commitment, hospitals will move to provide non-urgent procedures outside of regular hours,” he said.
