Only in the first quarter of 2025 more than 8,500 patients in New South Wales (NSW) waited longer than optimum for elective surgeries. Even when these waits were much worse than the clinically recommended timeline. Needless to say, health officials and the public are deeply concerned about this alarming trend. Today, the state is feeling tremendous strain on its healthcare system.
By the end of the third quarter, an astonishing 100,678 people remained on the waitlist. That’s a 7.3 percent increase over the previous number. The outbreak has raised serious questions about resource allocation and staffing prioritization within the state’s health districts. These areas are already dealing with a growing backlog of elective surgeries.
Distressing Wait Times Across Health Districts
Hunter New England Local Health District (LHD) experienced the largest increase of any regional LHD. A shocking 1,249 people waited longer than clinically recommended – up 720 patients. South Eastern Sydney LHD had the appalling figures of . In all, 1,657 people had their care delayed, an astonishing 1,338 more than the same period in 2024.
Western Sydney LHD had the highest increase with 1,023 more patients. Sadly, this new influx has brought the number up to 1,350 people currently waiting too long for their surgeries. These figures paint a deeply alarming picture across almost every local health district across the state. Almost all of these districts indicated that the number of surgical patients is surpassing desired wait times.
Of these patients, 3,464 patients experienced delays in having their semi-urgent surgeries. These procedures can usually be scheduled within 90 days, but many were forced to wait much longer. 5,118 people are behind for non-emergency surgeries that are supposed to be done within 12 months. This figure represents an astounding increase of 151.3 percent relative to the same quarter last year.
“What it clearly demonstrated was that it could be achieved, but the problem was it took a huge resource application to achieve it and you can commit to that, clear the deck and then go back to business as usual.” – Fred Betros
Government Response to Overdue Surgeries
In reaction to the scary numbers, NSW Health Minister Ryan Park made a historic decision. He personally announced a commitment of $23 million to address the problem of overdue surgeries. The funding is intended to facilitate several measures: hiring additional staff, purchasing more consumables, expanding weekend theatre rostering, and engaging private providers to alleviate pressure on public facilities.
Both Dr. Betros and other health professionals have noted a disturbing phenomenon. So many other specialists, from psychologists to childcare workers, are being lured into the private sector by more attractive financial incentives. This trend further compounds the staffing crisis public hospitals are experiencing, specifically anaesthetists who are vital to elective surgery processes.
“One of the perpetual problems we have right now in the public sector is certainly for elective surgery, is lack of anaesthetists who are willing to work in the public sector.” – Unattributed source
Park also recognized the progress that had been made from a peak of 14,000 overdue surgeries. He said that there was a ways to go to continue to improve access to scheduled surgeries.
“We made significant progress in reducing the overdue surgeries that we inherited, down from 14,000. But we know there’s always more that we can do to improve the accessibility of planned surgeries.” – Ryan Park
The Ongoing Challenge for NSW Health
The drastic increase in waitlist numbers is further evidence of the struggles that continue to afflict the NSW healthcare system. Hilary Rowell noted that despite previous improvements leading to a decrease in patients waiting longer than clinically recommended—falling to 1,857 patients in the second quarter of the previous year—the current figures indicate a troubling upward trend.
“[That’s] quite a substantial increase from the same time a year ago.” – Hilary Rowell
Rowell shone a light on an alarming trend in emergency departments. They’ve had a 6 percent reduction in moderate triage category four patients and a 12 percent reduction in non-urgent triage category five patients. This reduction will do little to prevent the increasing queue in elective surgeries.
“We saw the list gradually decrease down to the end of 2023 and then we’ve seen it gradually ticking up since then.” – Hilary Rowell
