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Written by STEVE KELLY.
PATIENTS admitted to Mansfield District Hospital’s (MDH) emergency department jumped from 2604 in 2006/07 to 3186 last financial year, similar to the Victorian trend, according to the annual ‘Your Hospitals’ report released last week.
Victorian hospitals improved their performance on key measures of emergency department treatment, elective surgery and bypass despite increased demand and a record number of patients, the report indicates.
Victorian Health Minister, Daniel Andrews, said hospitals admitted almost 1.4 million patients during 2007/08, compared with one million in 1999/2000.
"At a time when hospitals are treating more patients than ever before, they are also treating more of them within the benchmark times," Mr Andrews said.
But AMA Victoria president, Dr Doug Travis, said the report indicates the number of Victorians missing out on clinically appropriate care was growing.
"Lengthy waits can seriously increase risk of complications and even death and all public hospital patients should be seen within the clinically appropriate times," he said.
"Our hospitals are in crisis.
"We have a growing population, coupled with a chronic shortage of nurses, doctors and beds to care for patients."
MDH chief executive officer, Janene Ridley, said some 30 per cent of emergency patients are attended to solely by nursing staff.
She said although the number of inpatients treated dropped from 1686 in 2006/07 to 1578 in 2007/08, bed day numbers increased, indicating patients were staying for longer in the 2007/08 year.
"We don’t have waiting lists for surgery, but people do have to wait a number of weeks to have a gastroscopy or colonoscopy at Mansfield," she said.
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