Breast screening numbers dropped during 2021 as COVID cases increase in NSW as Bureau of Health Information reports show how Hunter hospitals coped with pandemic

Newcastle and the Hunter's BreastScreen NSW clinics were closed in August when NSW temporarily suspended all screening and assessment services at its public clinics due to rising COVID case numbers.

Compared to 2019 data, 69,000 fewer women aged 50-to-74 attended BreastScreen NSW services across the state in 2021, a Bureau of Health Information (BHI) report says.

All BreastScreen NSW services were closed for four weeks, with some rural and regional sites shut down for up to 10 weeks, and some Sydney metropolitan services closed for about 16 weeks. Some of the key Hunter New England clinics began to reopen from September 22.

BreastScreen NSW says one in seven women will be diagnosed with breast cancer in their lifetime - but when it is picked up early, most women will recover and can "quickly get back to normal life".

The Healthcare in Focus - New South Wales and the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021 report - published on Wednesday alongside BHI's latest Healthcare Quarterly results - found that due to COVID-19 being more prevalent in metropolitan Sydney than other parts of the state during the Delta wave, restrictions and the suspension of non-urgent elective surgery was "not uniform" across NSW.

This quarter captures the later stages of the Delta outbreak and the emerging Omicron variant, which the health district says had a "considerable impact" on healthcare services.

Waiting lists for elective surgery in regions like Hunter New England "decreased steadily" throughout 2021, but the subsequent suspension of non-urgent surgery in Sydney meant waiting lists increased in the city.

Overall ambulance activity in 2021 was up 2 per cent on pre-pandemic 2019, but BHI Chief Executive Dr Diane Watson said there were "striking increases" in emergency responses to patients with potentially life-threatening conditions during the Delta and Omicron waves, particularly in metropolitan areas.

Hunter New England recorded the highest number of emergency department presentations of all the NSW health districts between October and December in 2021, BHI's latest Healthcare Quarterly data shows.

More than 107,300 people presented to the district's emergency departments, a drop of 3.6 per cent from the same quarter in 2020.

The busiest of the region's hospitals was the John Hunter, where more than 20,600 people presented for care during the quarter.

Almost 73 per cent of patients started treatment within clinically-recommended time frames across the health district. At John Hunter Hospital, 68.8 per cent of patients began treatment on time.

Across all Hunter New England emergency departments, almost 68 per cent of patients left within four hours. But when it came down to individual hospitals, that number dropped to 51.8 per cent at Maitland Hospital, 52.1 at John Hunter Hospital, and 58.9 per cent of Belmont Hospital patients leaving within four hours.

There were more than 7000 elective surgeries performed at the district's hospitals between October and December 2021 - down 12.5 per cent from the same period in 2020. Of those, 97 per cent were performed on time - an increase of 19.4 percentage points on the year before.

The median wait time for urgent elective surgery was 12 days.

Hunter New England Health chief executive, Michael DiRienzo, said while activity levels were down overall, the district had a significant increase in the number of emergency department patients requiring the highest levels of care.

The number of triage category one (resuscitation) patients - the most urgent patients - increased by 24 presentations - or 5.9 per cent - compared with the same quarter in 2020 while emergency cases increased by 1,623 presentations - or 13.2 per cent.

Mr DiRienzo said these numbers were the highest of any final quarter in the district since BHI reporting began in 2010.

"This report highlights a time of rising COVID-19 case numbers both within the community and in our hospitals during this reporting period, and our staff continued to rise to the challenge during these difficult circumstances," he said.

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