A new low for ED waiting times

Te What Ora has finally published data for the Sep 23 quarter and the percentage of ED patients seen within six hours has dropped from 72.3% a year ago to 67.6%. Under National is was almost at 95%. So Labour have managed to go from 1 in 20 waiting over six hours to more than six in 20.

More shocking is if you look at the absolute numbers. At the old level of 95% seen within six hours, that means only 17,000 ED patients would wait more than six hours. But the actual number in the latest quarter was over 110,000. That’s 90,000 more NZers waiting more than six hours at ED.

Curse Labour for removing this as a national health target in 2017. It will now take a lot of time and effort to turn it around and get it back to acceptable levels.