How long are public hospital waiting times in Australia?

While we’ve come out the other side of a pandemic with our public healthcare system still intact, it’s safe to say that many Aussies remain concerned about public hospital wait times and surgery waitlists. When procedures are drawn out – even those that are elective – it can have knock-on effects across the broader system, not to mention the impact on the health and wellbeing of patients.

Whether it’s for minor surgery or a critical procedure, the length you have to wait can depend on the type of treatment needed to the urgency of your condition, even the availability of resources in the public healthcare system. To give you all the necessary information and hopefully put your mind at ease, let’s take a look at how long you can expect to wait for procedures in a public hospital.

In Australia, public hospital wait times operate on a priority-based system. Essentially, this means patients are assessed by a medical professional and then placed into a category according to the urgency of their condition and the type of treatment required. Those who have more urgent needs, such as emergency cases or life-saving surgeries, are usually prioritised over less pressing cases. The length of the waiting period itself can therefore vary hugely depending on the specifics of your case.

For elective surgeries and specialist consultations, most patients will face some length of waiting time before receiving treatment. The good news for those who have taken out private health insurance is that you will usually have much shorter wait times for elective procedures if you choose to be taken care of in a private healthcare facility.

Private hospitals and day-surgery centres generally give you faster access to treatment if you’re a patient with private health insurance. In other words, you’re allowed to ‘bypass’ the lengthy queues that are associated with public hospitals. However, bear in mind that private healthcare comes at a price, so you’ll want to make sure you have the right level of cover and are prepared for any out-of-pocket expenses.

Not all states and territories in Australia publish data on the actual hospital treatment and surgery wait times. In fact, according to the latest ABC data, only Victoria, Queensland, Tasmania and South Australia supply this information. Let’s use the latest Victorian data from the ABC to share some of the longest hospital waitlist times for certain procedures:

• Hepatobiliary and pancreas: 1,005.2 days or 2.75 years
• Ear, nose and throat (ENT) surgery: 819 days or 2.24 years
• Orthopaedics: 769.10 days or 2.11 years
• Plastic surgery: 741.70 days or 2.03 years
• Ophthalmology: 631 days or 1.73 years
• Dermatology: 616 days or 1.69 years
• Immunology: 534 days or 1.46 years
• Urology: 470.90 days or 1.29 years
• Rheumatology: 467.7 days or 1.28 years
• Gynaecology: 454 days or 1.24 years

Every part of the country will have different average wait times, and some hospitals may be much faster – or in other cases much slower – to attend to your specific treatment. So do your research to find a provider within your network that can take care of your health needs in a timeframe that suits you best.

It depends on a number of factors. First, there’s the type of procedure you need done in a hospital. For some treatments, the hospital wait time will be extremely short, while for others it may be several months or even years before you get seen.

According to a recent 9news report, Victorian patients who were deemed to require surgery “semi-urgently” were found to be waiting an average of 307 days instead of the recommended 90 days. Moreover, patients who were recommended to have surgery within a year’s time (i.e. 365 days) were actually waiting around 648 days for their procedures.

While Australians are lucky to have such a robust public healthcare system, you can tell by these lengthy hospital wait times that it may be prudent to take out some level of private health insurance and get your procedures seen to in a private hospital within a much shorter period of time.

Depending on where you live around Australia, you should be able to find government resources about public hospital wait times for the emergency department (non-urgent) and waiting times until treatment.

For example, the Victorian Agency for Health Information has a public hospital emergency department non-urgent wait time website that provides the estimated median time to treatment for non-urgent patients. You’ll be able to access all the live wait times for different hospitals across the state.

Your state or territory may also have a waiting time for treatment page that will give you more specific data around the median waiting time according to historical data.

Short answer: Yes, if you choose to get treatment in a public hospital as a private patient, you will be subject to public hospital waitlists.

Long answer: In Australia, people with a Medicare number are eligible for free treatment in public hospitals. However, private health insurance is an alternative if you want to access healthcare services faster. As a private patient, you have the option to get treatment in either public or private hospitals. Choosing private care in a private hospital means you get to select your preferred doctor or specialist, and potentially get your procedure booked much faster than if you stuck to the public system. Private patients may also get to enjoy the comfort of a private room during your hospital stay.

In the private hospital system, there are no waiting lists for elective surgeries. Once you get a referral from your doctor saying you need surgery, you can book everything in with the surgeon. Following the initial consultation, you’ll be able to choose the most convenient date for your operation. And if your preferred surgeon’s schedule is booked up, you can simply find another one who is available by getting a new referral from your GP.

If you are going through the public system, however, you can expect sometimes-significant wait times. After you are assessed by a doctor as needing planned surgery, you’ll usually be placed into a specific ‘category’. In Victoria, for example, there are categories for urgent (treatment within 30 days), semi-urgent (within 90 days) and non-urgent (within 12 months). You’ll then be placed on a public hospital waitlist.

Once again it depends on where you are located around the country as well as the severity of the emergency. However, in most cases you’ll be seen very quickly by the emergency department.

According to the latest advice from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, your emergency hospital wait time according to the triage category you are assigned will be:

• Resuscitation: Immediate (within seconds).
• Emergency: Within 10 minutes.
• Urgent: Within 30 minutes.
• Semi-urgent: Within 60 minutes.
• Non-urgent: Within 120 minutes.

It can be scary seeing news articles about blown-out hospital wait times for different procedures and surgeries. Unfortunately, that’s the reality of getting medical care through the public health system.

If you want to minimise your wait times then it’s a good idea to get private health insurance with the right amount of cover – so you can choose your doctor or specialist, get treatment in a private hospital and avoid the lengthy public hospital waitlists.