An Australian study has found that 61% of patients in New South Wales were still waiting for an initial outpatient appointment 12 months after being referred for cataract surgery.
Led by Dr Jessie Huang-Lung at the School of Optometry and Vision Science, UNSW Sydney and The George Institute for Global Health, the study also compared the financial burdens of 12-month vs three-month waits for surgery and the cost of increased falls and car crashes in untreated cataract patients. Reducing wait times to three months would save the health system AU$6.6m annually, not counting other economic impacts of vision impairment, said researchers.
Based on wait-time data collected from Australia’s different states, authors described a best-case scenario in which a public hospital patient would have cataract surgery within four months of referral and a worst case where they would wait more than 2.5 years. Researchers said these data were collected prior to the Australian government’s March 2020 pandemic mandate pausing elective surgeries, including cataracts and that such procedures have gradually resumed since then.
The study also highlighted the ethnic disparity in public hospital treatment, with 36% longer median waiting times for Indigenous patients compared with other Australians. Authors also noted that the effects of those delays are compounded by vision loss from cataracts disproportionately affecting Indigenous Australians (adjusted odds ratio: 2.95).
