Treatment should occur within four months of being put on a waiting list, but for those in the South the average wait for knee surgery is almost 10 months.
Health New Zealand Te Whatu Ora Southern said last week it was experiencing "significant pressures" due to high levels of acute demand and workforce shortages.
Outsourcing has been an ongoing theme — between January 1 and June 12 last year, 31.2% of knee replacements provided through the public system were actually carried out by private providers.
In that time, 93 knee replacements were carried out in the Southern area according to Official Information Act data, as reported by the ODT recently.
This included 51 knee replacements at Dunedin Hospital and 31 at Southland Hospital.
A further 29 were outsourced to private providers — Mercy Hospital, Southern Cross Central Lakes Hospital and Southern Cross Hospital Invercargill.
Southern group director of operations Hamish Brown provided a figure of 31.6% when asked how the numbers now stood.
"From December 2023 to April 2024, 117 knee operations were completed across Southern, and 37 of those were outsourced."
As of May 25 there were 202 patients on the inpatient waiting list for knee surgery in the Southern area, Mr Brown said.
The average waiting time for these patients was 296 days.
Patients who have been waiting more than a year are sometimes eligible to be transferred to South Canterbury for treatment.
HNZ Southern did not answer questions about the waiting list for a knee replacement at Dunedin Hospital.
However, this time last year, the average wait was 449 days.
At the time, HNZ Southern acknowledged this was not acceptable, a letter provided to the ODT last week showed.
Sent to a GP last May, the letter said a review of a patient in need of knee replacement surgery had been carried out, but had not resulted in a change to the patient’s priority.
"Currently there are a significant number of patients waiting greater than the four-month Ministry of Health guideline for surgery in orthopaedics.
"We acknowledge we are not providing elective orthopaedics surgery in an acceptable timeframe.
"However, alongside working to address these long-waiting patients, we must prioritise acute demand and life-saving services."
If the GP or patient wanted an update on the waiting list they could leave a message with the orthopaedics team, the letter said.
Mr Brown said last week HNZ acknowledged the distress current waiting times might be having on people awaiting treatment, especially if timeframes were uncertain.
Elective surgeries were being affected by significant pressures throughout the country.
"Our immediate focus is on urgent patients and those who have been waiting the longest for treatment and we know this is making a difference."
Nationally, progress had been made, he said.
Patients were encouraged to contact their GP if their condition changed. They were also encouraged to email feedback.
HNZ denied a recent claim it was breaching of the Code of Health and Disability Services Consumers' Rights, but did not elaborate.
Nor would the organisation say when it planned to start including estimated waiting times when notifying people they had been placed on a waiting list.
HNZ Southern does not currently include this information in such letters, but has announced plans to include it in future.
A frustrated patient recently criticised the current letter format as in breach of the code, pointing to the right to "advice of the estimated timeframe within which services will be provided".
