Ambulances are responding faster to life-threatening emergencies in the City of Greater Dandenong, while elective surgery waiting lists are at record lows.

The latest performance data released today shows the Andrews Labor Government’s major health funding boosts and reforms to Victoria’s ambulance system are delivering big benefits to Dandenong patients when they need it most.

For Dandenong Hospital, the data shows the hospital:

• Reduced the number of patients on the elective surgery waiting list – from 1446 at the end of the March quarter to 1360 at the end of June.
• Admitted 1668 patients from the elective surgery waiting list for the June quarter – an extra 125 admissions than three months earlier.
• Provided elective surgery to 100 per cent of Category One urgent patients within the benchmark 30 days – more than half within 7 days.

Across the state, 83.8 per cent of all Code One urgent ambulances are arriving at emergencies within 15 minutes. On average, ambulances arrived 11 minutes and 12 seconds after being called out – that’s 38 seconds faster than the same quarter one year prior and 2 minutes and 41 seconds faster than during the height of the ambulance crisis under the Liberals.

In the City of Greater Dandenong, we are seeing more improvement, with 92 per cent of ambulances now arriving within 15 minutes for Code One emergencies, up from 87.3 per cent a year earlier.

The average time for an ambulance to reach the scene of a Code One emergency in Dandenong over the same period has improved from 10:42 minutes to 9:40 minutes.

The statewide data also shows 86.7 per cent of patients arriving by ambulance were transferred into hospital care within 40 minutes – up from 85.1 per cent the previous quarter. More than half were handed into the care of doctors and nurses within 19 minutes.

Victoria’s elective surgery waiting lists at June 30 had dropped to 36,096 patients – that’s the lowest number on record, and a major improvement from the record high 50,054 waiting for surgery when the Liberals were in power.

Under the Liberals, only 79.2 per cent of patients received their surgery in the recommended time, but that number has increased to 90.2 per cent.

The results are thanks to the Labor Government’s record investments, which have seen hospitals receive multi-million-dollar boosts, more paramedics join the front line, more ambulances hit the road and more ambulance stations where they’re needed.

They stand in stark contrast to the former Liberal Government – who went to war with our paramedics and slashed $1 billion from our health system, leaving patients waiting too long for life-saving care and languishing on waiting lists.