After halting all elective surgeries in March last year, the Riverina saw the most elective surgeries ever recorded in a quarter between April and June this year.
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Surgeries being classed as elective doesn't necessarily mean they are optional procedures, only that the surgeries can be scheduled in advance.
They can include both quality-of-life procedures or proactive surgeries such as removing moles or kidney stones.
Elective surgeries were halted in March last year as hospitals allocated resources to tackling the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic which extended the wait list for both urgent and non-urgent surgeries significantly.
With the return of surgeries, the Murrumbidgee Health District has made incredible headway in tackling that extended list after receiving a funding boost from state and federal governments.
The district handled 2554 elective surgeries in just three months, an increase of almost 500 more cases handled than the January to March quarter.
Dr Len Bruce, the executive director of medical services, said that he was very happy to be able to get ahead of the list.
"The number of cases performed in the district in the quarter from April to June was the highest ever, which I'm really, really proud of," he said.
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The district also managed to complete 99.8 per cent of urgent surgeries and 99.7 per cent of non-urgent surgeries in that time, bringing the total number of overdue elective surgeries to zero by the end of June.
MLHD Chief Executive Jill Ludford added that attendances to emergency departments had also increased.
"While there was an overall increase in the number of people coming to our emergency departments, the majority of patients had their treatment start on time," Ms Ludford said.
""The median time to leave ED was two hours three minutes, which is over one hour faster than the NSW average of three hours nine minutes ... Also, 77 per cent of patients were able to leave the ED within four hours of presentation, which is a great result."
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