Quarterly health data released for Base Hospital

FOR the first three months of the year, Victoria has been challenged by bushfires and the coronavirus pandemic, causing a heightened need for medical services.

The State’s health performance data has been released for this quarter of the year, and outlines how the Ballarat Base Hospital coped with the increased service requirements.

Doctors and nurses managed to treat 100 per cent of the most serious category one patients immediately upon their arrival to the Base’s emergency department, which saw 15,655 cases in this quarter.

Member for Wendouree Julianna Addison extended her gratitude to frontline workers.

“These are unprecedented times and I thank each and every one of our healthcare workers in Ballarat for their hard-work and continued dedication on the frontline of our pandemic response,” she said.

All category one urgent elective surgery patients were operated on in under 30 days, with half being operated on within 10 days.

However, Member for Ripon Louise Staley criticised the State government’s “self-proclaimed blitz on elective surgery”.

“In the Ballarat region in March, there were 286 more category one patients waiting for elective surgery than in December 2019,” she said. “That’s too many Ballarat region patients left in pain for too long.”

When it came to pre-hospital care, ambulances across the Ballarat region managed an average response time of 10 minutes and 44 seconds, reaching 87.9 per cent of code one emergencies within the 15-minute benchmark.

Code one emergencies are those that require immediate paramedic care and are normally met with the ambulance’s lights and sirens being used.