Lakes District Health Board says it is carrying out more elective surgeries than planned, despite figures which show 525 people referred for elective surgery in the region "exited untreated".
Lakes District Health Board manager of surgical and elective services Greg Vandergoot said the health board felt considerable progress had been made with more people receiving elective surgeries. It says figures released by NZ First last week showing that 525 patients referred for surgery in the Lakes region did not receive the treatment were due to a number of reasons, like the patient not wanting the surgery, no longer requiring the treatment or needing further assessment.
In some cases the patient was medically unfit for surgery, while others made the decision to have the surgery done privately. However he said the number of these cases appeared to be dropping because people were waiting shorter times for treatment.
Mr Vandergoot said from December 31, patients across all specialties had to be treated within four months of being accepted on to the waiting list, with urgent and semi-urgent elective cases taking priority.
"Given that several years ago people could wait six months or longer from the time they were accepted on to the waiting list, to receive their surgery. This time frame has now moved to four months effective 31 December 2014 for those that meet the access criteria for surgery."
He said in the year ending June 30 last year, the health board had planned to carry out 3659 elective procedures but in the end 4166 were completed. That meant an extra 507 people had elective procedures than were scheduled for the year, which is just under a 14 per cent increase on planned numbers.