PATIENTS across Western NSW will face shorter elective surgery wait times thanks to funding allocated in last week's state budget.
The state government's 2016-17 budget allocated $40 million to increase service capacity in newly built and redeveloped facilities, including the new Dubbo Hospital.
General manager Debbie Bickerton said Dubbo Hospital's share of the funding would secure a further 12 months of service from the facility’s fifth operating theatre, shoring up 35 full-time equivalent (FTE) positions.
"The 35 FTE, the majority of those are nurses but some of it is medical and hotel services, cleaners, and that also covers an increase in intensive care so I think that's quite a sizeable increase for a hospital like Dubbo," Ms Bickerton said.
"It will benefit across the region because only about 50 per cent of patients we see are from Dubbo and the rest are from the rest of the region.
"The main thing we'll be able to do is to decrease the length of time people wait for elective surgery."
Ms Bickerton said speeding up elective surgery waiting times had far-reaching benefits, as patients often place an increased burden on the health system while they wait for surgery.
“If you get someone in to have their elective surgery in a timely fashion, you stop the pain, their suffering, their decrease in mobility [which causes additional illness] then they don't come into ED,” she said.
“The length you wait in Dubbo is higher than you would wait [elsewhere in] the state and that's mainly because [we haven’t had the capacity].”
Dubbo's fifth operating theatre opened in Februrary this year after hospital management secured a special grant.
The share of the $40 million service capacity funding will ensure it’s continued operation, with Ms Bickerton saying the fifth theatre likely would have closed without further funding.
