By VICTORIA STONE-MEADOWS
DATA released by Victorian Health Services Performance on Monday 1 August shows emergency room waiting times at Casey Hospital in Berwick have dramatically increased.
The percentage of emergency room presentations at Casey Hospital that were not treated in a desirable time leapt from 19 per cent in April to June 2015 to 29 per cent in the same time this year.
That percentage increase translates to 674 patients that were not treated in a timely manner in the Emergency Department.
The data also shows an increase from this time last year in the number of patients that waited more than four hours in the emergency room and were not admitted to hospital from 446 to 717 patients.
There has also been an increase in ambulance waiting times for patient drop-off at Casey Hospital with an increase of 14 per cent more ambulances waiting more than 40 minutes than last year.
Member for South-Eastern Metropolitan Region Gordon Rich-Phillips said the blow out of wait times at Casey Hospital was unacceptable.
“It is unacceptable that Casey Hospital’s emergency department is missing targets on basic performance measures including treatment times and ambulance transfer times,” he said.
“Daniel Andrews needs to provide urgent support to hard working doctors and nurses at Casey Hospital to stop this getting even worse.”
A spokesperson from Casey Hospital has defended the operation of the emergency department, saying the high volume of patients is being seen in a timely manner.
“Casey Hospital’s emergency department is a very busy emergency department, providing excellent care while seeing more patients than ever before,” the spokesperson said.
“The emergency department at Casey Hospital continues to treat the most urgent cases in a timely manner.”
The spokesperson also said more than 90 per cent of emergency patients not admitted at Casey Hospital stay less than four hours which was above the state target of 80 per cent.
While the performance of the emergency department has been called into question, the staff at Casey Hospital say they are performing well in other healthcare services.
“Casey Hospital is also proud to have achieved a significant reduction in the total elective surgery waiting list,” the spokesperson said.
