Record numbers of untreated patients were cut from the Whanganui District Health Board's surgical waiting lists last year, resulting in an elective surgery list the board has claimed as its most successful.
Details obtained by the Wanganui Chronicle under the Official Information Act show 286 fewer people received elective surgery at Wanganui Hospital in the year to June 2012, compared to the previous year.
Although surgical waiting lists were worked through at a higher rate than ever before, the figures reveal this was as a result of the more than 1130 untreated patients who were cut from the Whanganui District Health Board's (WDHB) books.
That equates to a quarter of all the patients who were processed for elective surgery at the hospital last year.
Health board spokespeople have put the reduction down to patients moving, being treated elsewhere, opting out of surgery or being too ill, among other reasons. In the years from July 2007 to June 2011, the WDHB continued to increase the number of elective surgeries performed each year by an average of 418. The number of untreated patients cut from surgical waiting lists had remained flat, until increasing by 120 in the year to June 2011 and by 403 last year.