Chris Wakeman: General surgeon says the health sector should set targets for all elective surgeries

Belief the health sector should set targets for all elective surgeries to ensure wait times are reduced fairly.

The Government's exceeded its half-year target, by delivering more than 16-thousand extra operations before the end of June. 

The overall waitlist has also dropped by nine percent.

General surgeon Chris Wakeman told Mike Hosking targets are a good manoeuvre - but they do have their downfalls.

He's worried staff won't be able to deal with smaller and high turnover cases if they don't see them in public institutions.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
New health data out this morning. In March, the government
committed to an extra ten thousand, five hundred and seventy
nine procedures before the end of June. Right did they
hit that? Dye it? Sixteen thousand and five were completed,
which is fifty one percent more than they actually planned.
Just over five thousand of those were cataracts, six hundred
and thirty eight hips, seven hundred and fifty one knees.
Chris Wakeman as General Surgeon also at the University of Waikato,

(00:21):
University of a Targo, rather in christ Church, where is
a senior lecturer Chris, morning to.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
You, Good morning.

Speaker 1 (00:27):
In the grand scheme of things? How effective has this
group of procedures been in the overall idea of getting
rid of a wait list?

Speaker 2 (00:37):
It clears a lot of cases off the weightlist. I
mean the chosen cases which are hard turned over quick
efficient and there is a wait time for it. Have
you've got a cataract and you've been waiting? Of course
you're very grateful.

Speaker 1 (00:52):
What's the value of a target? Is it just money?
Is it space? Is it labor? Is it the organization?
Is it where you are in the country?

Speaker 2 (00:59):
What is it? I think the value of the number
is just to try and clear people off. Just it
looks good. It is good clearing ten thousand, fifteen thousand
patients off weightless.

Speaker 1 (01:12):
What is it they do in that case? Then, in
the sense, why don't we just have a whole lot
of targets all the time and you know, crack.

Speaker 2 (01:17):
On, Well, we used to have targets and they were
removed and that gave you something to aim for and
you knew what we were standing compared to last year
or the year before. So I think I think it's
beneficial to have a target, to know what you're trying
to do, what you're trying to achieve.

Speaker 1 (01:32):
Cataracts at five thousand strikes me as being they're an
easy hit. Is that fair if you want to drum
some numbers up cataracts?

Speaker 2 (01:40):
Yeah, definitely, And they're chosen, chosen the easy headers have
to say.

Speaker 1 (01:44):
Okay, So the northern regions, I'm looking at the numbers.
I don't know whether this means anything. The Northern, the
mid Central, the Southern, the South Island. I mean, is
this this post code healthcare or not.

Speaker 2 (01:57):
It's a bit had to know, because I mean I
don't know of the Southern is that Tamaru or is
that Dunedin or asks in christ Jets doing all those operations.
I know we've been doing quite a few, and it's
interestingly easy hitters, as you say. I mean, Guyney was
the one which stuck stood out to me. There's not
much guyany been done, but there's a lot of unmet

(02:18):
need in gynecology and part of the problem is actually
getting people into into outpatients, assessing them, getting them ready
for surgery now in a rush, and then getting them
out contract so numbers down.

Speaker 1 (02:33):
How does this work in the hospital. Do you get
an email from somebody going, hey, look we've got a
big target here, let's let's go for it. I mean,
how does it unfold?

Speaker 2 (02:41):
No, it's a little bit secret, squirrel. We don't know.
With my public hat on, I don't know. I know
the contracting stuff out and private. The private hospitals then
contact the private institution rooms, so the surgical rooms, and
say you've got ten contra cases you need to do

(03:01):
do them with the next six weeks or whatever. And
they then send a hospital name and number and some
details and you contact that patient, get them into your
rooms and hopefully they're appropriate to be done.

Speaker 1 (03:13):
Right and so you feel that things have been moving.
You can see that as a doctor on the front
line that you are doing some more work.

Speaker 2 (03:20):
With my private hat. I'm definitely seeing every week I
get one or two cases come through the rooms which
need to be put on a private list to get
contracted out and get done efficiently.

Speaker 1 (03:32):
The breakdown of kids fifteen percent, with children forty nine percent,
we're over sixty five sixty six percent with New Zealand Europeans.
Do we have any indication of whether that's how that's
approached or why that's approached that way, or you just
do as you're told them.

Speaker 2 (03:48):
My feeling is that they're just they're not worried about
if you're on the waiting list. There's no check up
of trying to get rid of certain targets for ethnicities
or ages like the previous institution, previous years we've done.
It is just a matter of trying to get as
many patients as soon as possible.

Speaker 1 (04:10):
Very broadly, are we on the right track here?

Speaker 2 (04:15):
Yes, I think it is a really good maneuver. Worries
me long term training. What are our doctors, surgeons and
ethotists in ten years time? Even theater nurses how are
they going to be able to handle the smaller cases
and the high turnover cases that they don't see them
in the public institutions.

Speaker 1 (04:33):
Yeah, okay, Chris appreciate it very much. Chris Wakeman, General
Surgeon and at the University of Otiger's references. The more
you go the private, the training is done in the public,
and if they don't see as much in public, you
don't get as much training done.

Speaker 2 (04:44):
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