Rise in hospital admissions over last five years

By Dr. Ananya Mandal, MDJun 29 2010

According to a new ‘State of Our Public Hospitals’ report there is a 17 percent hike in the number of people seeking treatment at Australian hospitals in the last five years. This report was released by Health Minister Nicola Roxon on Tuesday.

It says that there were 4.9 million and 3.3 million admissions to public and private hospitals in 2008-09. Emergency department load has increased by 22 percent from six million in 2004 to over seven million in 2008-09 said the report. 70 percent of patients presenting to emergency were seen within time says the triage data from the emergency departments. Median waiting time was 23 minutes said the report. Cost of average hospital admission has risen by 14 per cent over and above inflation from $3,930 to $4,471 at 2008-09 prices. Regarding elective surgeries the report says that there were 595,009 admissions with mean waiting time of 34 days and 86 percent surgeries were conducted well within time. This was a 2 percent rise over the previous year. Number of available beds in public hospitals was 56,478 or 67 percent translating to 2.5 beds per 1,000 population. 43 percent hospitalizations for the indigenous population were for dialysis says the report. The next major group of admissions was injury and poisonings in this group. Royal Melbourne Hospital was the busiest public hospital in the nation, with 90,132 admissions during 2008-09, followed by Westmead Hospital in Sydney (80,111), Sir Charles Gardiner Hospital in Perth (79,392) and the Gold Coast Hospital (78,118).

Total health budget was $103 billion in 2007-8 (the most recent data available) and of this, $30.8bn was spent on public hospitals and about $7.7bn was spent on private hospital services.

Ms Roxon announced that with the increase in hospital burden the government has decided on a hospitals reforms plan to cope with the load. She explained that under the plan there will be a focus on primary health care with increase in general practitioners. Focus will also be on preventive health and better control and management of chronic diseases. This will go towards reducing admissions.