More than 38,000 Victorians were waiting for elective surgery on June 30 this year in what Health Minister David Davis has described as a significant fall from a peak under his government of 50,000 patients.
But doctors and nurses said the result simply returned the waiting list to a level inherited by the government when it won office four years ago, and more resources were needed to meet rising demand.
Mr Davis announced on Monday that 38,244 patients were waiting for elective surgery at Victoria’s public hospitals on June 30, describing it as ‘‘a fantastic result for Victorians’’.
A total of 37,194 patients were on the waiting list in June 2010 under the former Labor government.
Mr Davis said more patients were being treated amid growing demand, ‘‘so the waiting list in a relative sense has done extremely well’’.
The elective surgery waiting list reached a peak under the Coalition government of 50,054 on March 31 last year.
Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation state secretary Lisa Fitzpatrick said ‘‘just treading water’’ was not a good result.
‘‘Our members have reported a lot of activity in our theatres over the past six months; all of a sudden our nurses, surgeons and anaesthetists are working on weekends,’’ she said.
‘‘We think Victorians deserve better than having to wait for an election year to have their surgery.’’
Australian Medical Association state president Tony Bartone said the elective surgery waiting list had ‘‘effectively stood still’’ over the past four years despite a growing population bringing in more revenue for the state.
He said the government needed to regularly release data on waiting times for specialist appointments to provide a fuller picture of demand.
‘‘We are looking for more transparency and clarity in the numbers so we can carefully monitor where patients are waiting too long and where resources need to go.’’
Mr Davis said the hospital system had recovered from ‘‘savage [federal] funding cuts’’ two years ago with 170,190 patients admitted from the elective surgery waiting list in 2013-14 - up from 153,076 the year before.
He said he had chosen to release the preliminary figures, ahead of a more detailed quarterly report on hospital performance, because they were ‘‘an exciting set of figures [that] I think the community will be very interested to hear’’.
He was unable to provide details on the percentage of patients receiving surgery within clinically recommended times.
Opposition health spokesman Gavin Jennings said: ''There is nothing to brag about here - the waiting list is still higher today than it was four years ago."
