Cassy O'Connor MP | Greens Leader
Today’s updates to the HealthStats dashboard paint a bleak picture of a government failing to adequately look after its citizens.
The Liberals have underfunded health ever since they took office in 2014. The results of this are plain to see with the elective surgery waitlist now above 11,700 people – a shocking increase of 1,200 since the same time last year.
Particularly concerning is the continued ballooning of the waiting list for urgent surgeries, which now sits at 1,111 people - an increase of 48% in just one year.
These statistics tell a painful story of human suffering. More Tasmanians are not just waiting in pain for months for critical surgery, but are having their lives potentially put at risk by the delay.
In the past year, 134 people ended up requiring emergency surgery after they weren’t seen by a health professional in time from the waiting list. That’s completely unacceptable.
At the last election, the Liberals promised that, by the end of this term of government, 90% of elective surgery patients would be seen on time.
That figure now sits at just 50% - truly an indictment on this government.
Just as troubling is the fact that patients overdue for urgent surgery are waiting on average 99 days longer than the clinically recommended timeframe.
The Liberals cannot blame these failings on COVID. These statistics have been going in the wrong direction for much longer than the pandemic, and are clearly a direct result of a system that hasn’t been given the resources it needs to cope.
If the Liberals really cared about looking after Tasmanians, they would have addressed these problems already. Instead they’re pretending a small pre-election splash of cash will do the trick. That’s not true, and Tasmanians can see straight through them.