Non-urgent presentations to the emergency department at Canberra Hospital skyrocketed just as urgent presentations dropped, new data from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare shows.
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There were more than 6100 non-urgent presentations in the 2019-20 financial year at the Woden public hospital. This rose to nearly 11,500 in 2021-22.
However, at the same period of time, presentations classified as urgent dropped.
At Calvary Public Hospital Bruce, urgent, semi-urgent and non-urgent presentations remained fairly consistent.
Hospitalisations
ACT emergency department waiting times are more than double the nationwide average at 47 minutes.
There were 11.6 million public and private hospital admissions nationwide in 2021-22, a 2.1 per cent decrease from the previous year, the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare said.
The pandemic continues to impact hospitalisations, spokesperson Dr Adrian Webster said.
"Prior to the pandemic, hospitalisations increased by an average of 3.3 per cent per year between 2014-15 and 2018-19. However, the peak of the pandemic has thrown the steady growth trend off balance," he said.
Elective surgeries
There were more urgent elective surgeries conducted in both public hospitals in 2021-22.
However, there were fewer semi-urgent and non-urgent elective surgeries conducted in same time period.
Elective surgeries are those that do not occur as result of an emergency admission, and can be scheduled in advance.
In 2021-22, half of ACT patients waited an average 43 days to have an elective surgery, Australian Institute of Health and Welfare data showed.
This was the shortest waiting time since 2017-18, the first year in which the data is available.
It is longer than the nationwide average, where 50 per cent of patients waited an average of 40 days.
Many elective surgeries were delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
This meant that in 2021-22, Australia saw the lowest number of public elective surgeries performed since 2010-11, the health and welfare institute said.
NSW patients in ACT hospitals
Nearly one in five patients discharged from ACT hospitals normally live in NSW.
NSW residents were discharged from an ACT hospital 22,527 times in 2021-22.
There were 121,079 discharges over the entire year.
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Only four discharges were of people reported as being from the Northern Territory.
In comparison, 3365 discharges from NSW hospitals during the same time period were patients ordinarily residing in the ACT.
Canberra Hospital is a tertiary trauma hospital, taking in patients from the surrounding region.
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