There are surely few times in history when it has been so worrisome to be a person who may need care in South Australia’s public hospitals.
Whether it is waiting for treatment in our emergency departments (EDs) or to progress to the front of the waiting-list queue,
South Australians continue to suffer the health ramifications of living in one of the worst-performing hospital jurisdictions in this country.
Compared to last year, South Australia has slumped in terms of its hospitals’ capacity to treat Category 3 ED patients.
The percentage of ED visits completed in less than the target time of four hours is lower. The median wait time for surgery is higher.
The one parameter in which the state’s hospitals is no worse than last year is the percentage of Category 2 planned-surgery patients admitted within 90 days – and even there,
we’re a long way below the best state performance.
It seems that the South Australian hospitals’ capacity to meet their own targets has deteriorated since the beginning of the pandemic.
For example, the line indicating the percentage of urgent ED patients seen in less than 30 minutes is almost straight decline from a recent high in 2019-20 to 2022-23,
the most recent figures in the graph. And to a degree that makes sense. We doctors know how hard we’ve worked for our patients since January 2020 – and we know when,
how and usually why our efforts have had the most impact, and the least. What isn’t so clear is why clinicians are not included in more of the discussions about fixing this crisis,
so our hospitals are better placed to deliver our patients expect, want and need.
Meanwhile, South Australian doctors continue to bang our heads against the brick wall of the Treasurer’s office,
trying to explain why payroll tax on medical practitioners will only continue to steer these lines towards increasingly unacceptable milestones. A worrying time, indeed.
Key Takeaways
Following national trends, South Australia’s performance fell between the 2021-22 and 2022-23 periods
across most of the key performance indicators.
The sharpest drop came in the percentage of Cat 3 patients seen within the recommended time (< 30 minutes), with a 16 per cent drop in the past four years.
Table 1: SA performance 2022-23 compared to the previous year
| Cat 3 ED on time |
4 Hour Rule |
Median Surgery wait |
Cat 2 Surgery wait |
| ❌ |
❌ |
= |
= |
Table 2: SA performance 2022-23 compared to national average (below or above)
| Cat 3 ED on time |
4 Hour Rule |
Median Surgery wait |
Cat 2 Surgery wait |
| ▼ |
▼ |
= |
▼ |
Emergency department performance - South Australia
South Australia’s performance remains below average in emergency department related metrics, where the state saw a
worst in recent record performance in both areas for the second year in a row.
In total, 39 per cent of Category 3 patients are being seen on time, down from 70 per cent in 2011‒12, and only 52 per cent of patients who attend the emergency department are discharged within four hours or less.
Figure 3: Percentage of Category 3 (urgent) ED patients seen within the recommended time of under 30 minutes - SA
Figure 4: Percentage of ED visits completed in four hours or less - SA
Planned surgery performance - South Australia
South Australia’s 2022-23 performance closely reflects the national average when it comes to planned surgery wait times.
While the median waiting time for planned surgery slowly increases, the proportion of Category 3 patients admitted within the recommended time slowly decreases. Both results are bad for South Australian patients,
where the median wait time for planned surgery has blown out by ten days in only six years.
Figure 5: Median waiting time for planned surgery (days) - SA
Figure 6: Percentage of Category 2 planned surgery patients admitted within the recommended (90 days) - SA
Public hospital expenditure - South Australia
Figure 7: Per person average annual percent increase in public hospital funding by government source (constant prices) - SA
|
2011-12 to 2021-22 |
2011-12 to 2016-17 |
2016-17 to 2021-22 |
| Commonwealth |
1.31% |
-0.09% |
2.51% |
| SA Government |
0.98% |
-0.56% |
2.38% |
Figure 8: Public hospital funding, per person, by government source (constant prices) - SA
With only 37 per cent of public hospital funding coming from the Commonwealth, South Australia’s public hospital system is disproportionately funded by the state government.
