Young Health Service Continues To Deliver Quality Care

The latest Bureau of Health Information (BHI) Healthcare Quarterly report shows hospitals in Murrumbidgee Local Health District (MLHD) continued to deliver high-quality care from April to June 2022, despite significant challenges presented by both COVID-19 and the peak of the flu season.

Young Health Service had 2,095 emergency department (ED) attendances in the April to June 2022 quarter.

Almost all patients (92.7 per cent) started treatment on time, well above the average for hospitals of a similar size in NSW (76.4 per cent).

More than nine in 10 patients (93.5 per cent) were able to leave the ED within four hours of presentation - also better than the average for comparable hospitals in NSW (79.3 per cent).

Young Health Service also completed 65 elective surgeries, all of which (100 per cent) were performed on time.

Thirty babies were also born during the quarter.

There were challenges across the region, including large numbers of COVID-19 and flu cases and low staff numbers due to their being exposed to or contracting respiratory illnesses.

MLHD Chief Executive, Jill Ludford thanked staff for their hard work throughout this period of high activity. “It was a challenging start to 2022 with the peak of the Omicron outbreak impacting our communities and our workforce, and the onset of winter brought further challenges,” Ms Ludford said.

“Despite this, our emergency departments continued to provide care that is well above the state average in terms of emergency department wait times, and our ambulance transfer of care times are among the best in the state for this quarter.”

“I would like to extend my sincere thanks to our highly skilled and dedicated workforce. These results are a testament to their hard work.” There were 37,570 ED attendances across the District and more than eight in 10 patients (81 per cent) started treatment on time - well above the state average of 62.8 per cent.

The percentage of patients transferred within the 30-minute benchmark time from ambulance paramedics to an ED clinician was 85.5 per cent. (State average 72.5 per cent.)

The majority of patients (73.1 per cent) were able to leave the ED within four hours of presentation. (State average 57.6 per cent.) MLHD has worked hard to reduce elective surgery wait times, which have been impacted by necessary pauses on non-urgent procedures throughout the pandemic.

There were 1,753 elective surgeries completed across the region with almost all urgent elective surgeries (99 per cent) performed on time. “Our District remains committed to performing those procedures that were delayed as soon as possible and I thank the community for their patience during this challenging time,” Ms Ludford said.

“Patients due to receive non-urgent elective surgery who have been impacted by the restrictions are encouraged to seek medical attention should they experience a change in their condition so they can be clinically reviewed and re-prioritised to a more urgent category if required.”

MLHD increased its workforce by 680 full-time equivalent staff, an increase of 24.9 per cent including 64 more doctors, 326 more nurses and midwives and 111 more allied health staff, between mid-2012 and mid-2022.

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