Chris Dobney
The average person attending Lismore Base Hospital will have to wait two hours 45 minutes to be seen, according to statistics for July to September released by the Bureau of Health Information this week.
But waiting times at the hospital have improved substantially since June last year, when just 54 per cent of people were being seen within four hours. That figure has now improved to 68 per cent. In March last year that figure was 49 per cent.
But Lismore Base is still languishing behind all other hospitals in the region, which have substantially faster clearance rates.
The Tweed Hospital saw 76 per cent and Grafton Base Hospital 75 per cent of their patients respectively during the same period. That still equates to about a two hour 15 minute average waiting time.
Topping the list was Murwillumbah Hospital, which saw 92 per cent of its patients within the benchmark time, with most patients walking out the door within an hour and a half.
Other north coast hospitals – including Mullumbimby, Byron Bay, Ballina and Casino – are no longer separately broken out of the statistics but overall saw 86 per cent of their patients within a four-hour period.
