INVESTMENT IN TWEED TO COMBAT STATE’S HEALTH PRESSURES

By Sarah Waters

The new Tweed Valley Hospital and Kingscliff Ambulance Station are timely developments in a state which is struggling to keep up with health needs.

NSW public hospitals remain under sustained pressure, with a record number of ambulance responses and critically ill patients presenting to emergency departments - according to the latest Bureau of Health Information (BHI) Healthcare Quarterly report (January – March 2023).

Despite an increase in the number of triage category 2 patients presenting to emergency departments, wait times in NSW public hospitals were down for the third consecutive quarter.

Throughout the first quarter of 2023, there were 770,089 attendances to NSW public emergency departments.

Of these, 113,637 were patients with an imminently lifethreatening condition (triage category 2) – the highest number of patients recorded in this category since BHI began reporting.

Despite the increase in more complex presentations, the majority of patients (67.4%) started their treatment on time, while almost eight in 10 patients (77.7%) were transferred from ambulance to ED staff within the 30-minute benchmark time.

NSW Health Minister Ryan Park said the results showed the state’s health system still faced major challenges. There was a record 347,720 ambulance responses, the highest of any quarter since 2010.

There were 10,868 life-threatening cases (P1A responses) for NSW Ambulance which was slightly down on the previous quarter but still up 70.3% on pre-pandemic levels.

“There are signs the performance of the NSW health system is starting to recover from the ongoing impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic,” Mr Park said.

“That’s a testament to the hard work and dedication of each and every one of our essential healthcare workers.

“But the health system is facing unprecedented demand and has suffered from a lack of investment in its frontline work force.

Mr Park said the NSW Government was in the process of rolling out a broad suite of initiatives to improve patient access to care and ease pressure on the state’s busy emergency departments.

This included the establishment of 25 Urgent Care Services across the state to help reduce the number of unnecessary ED presentations among children and aged care residents.