AMA (NSW) response to the BHI quarterly report (Jan–Mar 2026)

STATEMENT FROM AMA (NSW) PRESIDENT DR FRED BETROS

The latest Bureau of Health Information report should not be used by the NSW Government as a victory lap.

Ambulance call-outs and arrivals are again the highest on record since reporting began in 2010. Treatment started on time for only 68.4 per cent of emergency department patients, while the median time from arrival to leaving the ED was three hours and 46 minutes.

Almost 80,000 patients spent more than 12 hours in an emergency department in just three months – more than the previous quarter, despite fewer people attending EDs overall. These figures do not show a system under control. They show system under enormous pressure, with patients still waiting too long and doctors and nurses being forced to carry the consequences of years of under-funding and poor workforce planning.

The NSW Government will point to elective surgery numbers and claim progress. The report shows 56,410 elective surgeries were performed, up 6.4 per cent compared with the same quarter last year, and 82.2 per cent were performed on time.

But there were still 92,383 patients on the waiting list at the end of March, including almost 4,000 patients who had waited longer than clinically recommended. Many of these people are waiting in pain or with a reduced quality of life. This is not acceptable.

In January to March this year, 2,532 elective surgeries were sent to private hospitals. In the same quarter last year, that figure was 926. The number of elective surgeries contracted to private hospitals has almost tripled in a year.

There is nothing wrong with using private hospitals to help patients receive care sooner. But the NSW Government cannot outsource pressure to the private system and pretend the public hospital system has been repaired.

We are already seeing what these conditions are doing to the emergency medicine workforce. The Australasian College for Emergency Medicine’s latest workforce survey highlighted the pressures doctors are under due to overcrowding and under-funding. The report also shows a sharp spike in patients presenting to EDs with non-urgent issues in western Sydney, indicating the rollout of Urgent Care Centres is not stemming the tide.

That should alarm the NSW Government.

This is not just a demand problem. It is a workforce problem, a funding problem and a planning problem. Patients do not need the NSW Government congratulating itself over selective improvements. They need a public hospital system with enough doctors, enough staffed beds, modern industrial arrangements, and proper investment in prevention.

We support Minister Ryan Park’s continued push for increased funding of public hospital activity by the Federal Government and his focus on reducing the number of stranded patients who are not discharged from public hospitals in a timely manner as they cannot access federally-funded aged or disability supports.

The system needs help now. We, as doctors, are doing our very best but we are not getting the support we need.