Maitland Hospital emergency department wait times increase as Bureau of Health Information report shows more ambulances arriving

The latest Bureau of Health Information report shows there was a 15 per cent drop in the number of patients starting their treatment on time at the hospital's ED in the July to September quarter in 2022 compared to the same time last year.

The data shows 45 per cent of patients who presented to Maitland Hospital ED in that quarter started their treatment within the clinically recommended timeframe.

There was a steady decline in other key benchmarks since the hospital's new site opened at Metford in January. The percentage of patients leaving the ED within four hours was the lowest recorded at the hospital in the past decade.

The report shows 35 per cent of patients left the emergency department within four hours, down 16.1 percentage points from the same quarter in 2021.

The number of arrivals to the hospital by ambulance is also the highest it has been in the past 10 years. There were more than 3500 arrivals via ambulance to the hospital between July and September - up 7.7 per cent, or 251 patients, from the same quarter last year. Of these, 78 per cent of patients were transferred from the care of paramedics to ED staff within 30 minutes - down 13.5 percentage points.

Maitland MP Jenny Aitchison, who has started a petition for more staff at the hospital, said she was alarmed by the results.

"I feel like people are resigned to it now, that they just know it is going to be a really long wait," she said.

"I want to see more staff across the hospital. The feedback I am getting is that people are waiting too long for a bed, and that is clogging up emergency - and the whole system."

A Hunter New England Health spokesperson said the latest report captured a "challenging period" for the hospital, as winter illnesses and ongoing furloughing of staff continued to place pressure on the health system.

"From July to September 2022, Maitland Hospital had 12,451 attendances and figures reveal more than half of those presenting to our emergency departments were not in need of life-threatening or critical care," she said. "All patients were seen and triaged on arrival at the ED, with the most seriously unwell patients treated first."

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