A quiet change to an elective – sorry, ‘planned’ – surgery target tells a tale in the state’s budget papers.
Somewhere in last week’s Victorian budget a number was quietly changed.
In 2022, the state government promised to carry out 240,000 elective surgeries a year by 2024, as part of a $1.5 billion covid backlog clearance plan.
But the budget papers – specifically the Department Performance Statement – now tell a different story.
In the “Admitted Services” section of the paper it is clear that target has been dropped to 200,000 for 2024-2025. The notes section says that change is “to reflect the cessation of the COVID-19 Catch up Plan, following significant reductions in the planned surgery waitlist”.
The truth is only 207,000 surgeries are expected to be completed by the end of 2023-24, so it makes sense that the government would want to make the target more “realistic”.
Back in November, the state Health Minister Mary-Anne Thomas was confident of hitting the 240,000 target. According to AAP, she said: “We’re going to hit it. We will come very close … and if we don’t achieve that target we’ll keep working until we do.”
On Sunday, Ms Thomas was happy to peg the shortfall on workforce issues.
“We’re still not able to access the workforce that we need,” she told the media. “We’re in a global war for talent when it comes to getting healthcare workers.”
Ms Thomas said the wait list for planned surgery – what used to be called elective surgery, until the government decided that did not “meaningfully describe the ‘planned’ nature of medically necessary surgeries that are often not an ‘elective’ choice” – had dropped 30% since its peak during the covid pandemic.
“The number of surgeries that will be performed in this financial year far outweigh any that have ever been done before when we look at planned surgery, when we look at emergency surgery,” Ms Thomas said on Sunday.
“What we’ve seen, of course, is some conditions can be resolved with endoscopy treatment alone.”