Hospitals kicking goals

By Jonathon Howard

TWEED SHIRE’S two local hospitals are kicking goals in their benchmarks, according to the latest Bureau of Health Information (BHI) Healthcare Quarterly report (October to December 2022).

Murwillumbah District Hospital saw 4,627 emergency department (ED) attendances during the quarter.

Most patients (77.5 per cent) started their treatment on time, which is better than the average for hospitals of a similar size in NSW (67.4 per cent).

More than eight in ten patients (81.4 per cent) left the ED within four hours, which was higher than the average for comparable hospitals in NSW (60.9 per cent).

Almost all patients (92.5 per cent) were transferred from ambulance to ED staff within the 30-minute benchmark.

The Tweed Hospital had 14,089 ED attendances during the quarter and also achieved solid results.

More than seven in 10 patients (77.5 per cent) started their treatment on time, which is above the average for hospitals of a similar size in NSW (63.2 per cent).

Eight in 10 patients (80.8 percent) were transferred from ambulance to ED staff within the 30-minute benchmark, which is also better than the average for hospitals of a similar size in NSW (76.3 per cent).

Northern NSW Local Health District acting chief executive for Lynne Weir said the district’s hospitals continued to perform well amid the high activity.

“After the challenging years of the COVID-19 pandemic, we’re beginning to see small but important upwards trajectories in the second half of 2022 across the majority of indicators of hospital performance,” Ms Weir said.

“This includes time to treatment, the percentage of patients leaving emergency departments within four hours, the time to transfer of care from ambulance to hospital staff, and the number of patients on the elective surgery waiting list at the end of the quarter.”