The ageing population is a significant factor putting pressure on hospital emergency departments and surgery waiting lists, according to the 2024 Public Hospital Report Card, an annual report that uses data from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare to pinpoint areas of concern in Australia's public hospital system.
"So that means with more older Australians, with more chronic disease and more complex disease, the medical care that they require isn't as easy or as simple as it may have been 20 years ago," said Australian Medical Association (AMA) Emergency Medicine Representative Dr Sarah Whitelaw.
"In terms of that ageing population combined with a decrease in the number of beds for our over 65 population that are increasingly needing [hospital] care, without that understanding and that investment and that strategic planning to deal with that."
Dr Whitelaw expects the trend will continue. "We will see a greater strain on the health system" from the ageing population, she said.
"We need to remove all of those barriers that exist currently, and to fund hospitals and to fund community care, to develop those integrated models of care," she said.
The AMA is calling on the Government for an additional $4.12 billion in funding over two years.
The report card found emergency departments (EDs) are "strangled" by blocked access, with ED patients being seen on time on average the lowest in 10 years in all categories except resuscitation.
The proportion of people who completed their emergency presentation in four hours or less was only 56%, representing a fall of 5% since last year and a fall of 14% since before the pandemic.
Median wait times for planned surgery are at their longest on record at 49 days, 22 days longer than reported in 2003 and twice as long on average than 20 years ago.
