The Health Department’s latest outpatient waitlist data shows why Tasmanian patients can’t afford the Liberals’ plan for a new round of health job cuts.

The data reveals that at the Royal Hobart Hospital, urgent neurosurgery patients are waiting 1,069 days for care. They’re supposed to be seen in 30 days.

Children referred as semi-urgent patients to the Mersey Community Hospital’s Paediatric Clinic can expect to wait 348 days – nearly a year – while semi-urgent neurology patients at the North West Regional Hospital face waits of more than 600 days.

And the situation at the Launceston General Hospital is perhaps worst of all, with urgent wound management patients waiting 1,121 days, semi-urgent respiratory patients waiting 940 days, and non-urgent respiratory patients facing waits of 2,087 days – nearly six years.

After 10 years of the Liberals, the waitlist to see a specialist has more than doubled. More than 33,000 extra people are stuck on a waitlist compared to 2014.

The Liberals, the Jacqui Lambie Network and the two independents who have promised to support Jeremy Rockliff’s budget need to understand that Tasmanian patients can’t afford any more health job cuts.

Tasmania’s health system is sick enough as it is.

Ella Haddad MP
Shadow Minister for Health