In response to the COVID-19 outbreak and increasing number of local cases, the Western NSW Local Health District is temporarily postponing non-urgent elective surgery in our health services.
All emergency surgery and urgent elective surgery will continue to be performed during this challenging period.
Non-urgent elective surgery will be postponed from today at Dubbo Base Hospital and Mudgee Health Service, and from tomorrow at Bathurst, Bourke, Coonabarabran, Cowra, Forbes, Orange and Parkes public hospitals.
This response is a necessary step to ensure we keep staff, patients and members of the public safe and that there are hospital beds available should the need arise.
Those waiting for non-urgent elective surgery who are impacted by the changes will be contacted and encouraged to contact their referring doctor should their condition deteriorate, so they can be re-prioritised to a more urgent category if required.
Non-urgent elective surgery has also been temporarily postponed at public hospitals in Greater Sydney, excluding the Illawarra Shoalhaven and Central Coast Local Health Districts, since Monday, 2 August.
The NSW Government is providing an additional $30 million to support private hospitals to undertake additional elective surgery on behalf of the NSW Health system to ensure that patients who have their non-urgent elective surgery postponed will be scheduled for surgery as soon as possible.
The NSW public health system is highly integrated and local health districts throughout the state work together on a daily basis to ensure the optimal delivery of healthcare services across the state.
There is currently sufficient ICU capacity for all patients who require intensive care, with more than 500 beds available throughout the system.
As part of its comprehensive planning for its pandemic response, NSW Health has the capacity to quadruple its current ICU capacity if required. There would also be ventilators available for each of these ICU beds.
The NSW Government has committed more than $4 billion to the NSW health system to manage the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic since March 2020.
