Ms Kelman (52), of Dunedin, does not have a date yet, but it will be carried out early this year.
Ms Kelman was shunted between Dunedin Hospital and her GP a couple of times, before securing another appointment late last year in which her surgery was approved. Because of pressure over patients like Ms Kelman, the Government started officially counting how many patients were being turned away. Last week, the figures were updated to show the first complete year.
In 2015-16, the Southern District Health Board refused 6697 patients who had been referred for a first specialist assessment, the second-highest in the country, although some DHBs’ data is incomplete. Nationally, 57,048 patients were turned away.
Labour health spokeswoman Annette King said it was "increasingly impossible" for DHBs to see enough patients.
"What is even more concerning is that one in five of these cases are orthopaedic declines, things like knees and hips."
Ms Kelman, who has osteoarthritis, said the rate of refusals was "not good enough".
Her pain was such that she had had to take a day off work last week.
Being shunted back to her GP and not knowing when she would get back "through the door" of the hospital was very frustrating.
"You get your hopes up. You can’t help it and [you come] crashing back down again. You get told so many different things.
"This time we were prepared to go in for a fight and he just said straight away: ‘You need a new hip’."
SDHB chief executive Chris Fleming said access to first specialist appointments was a priority for the board.
"It’s an area where we’re making progress and will continue to improve our performance through a whole-of-system approach to healthcare delivery.
"Declined [first specialist] referrals are indicative of the very high number of referrals received by secondary-care clinicians in this district.
"We know there are areas where we need to improve the number of specialist appointments available and we are working to address this," Mr Fleming said.
In November, Dunedin orthopaedic surgeon Prof Jean-Claude Theis revealed that nearly a third of FSA patients were being turned away from the department.
"I get regular letters from GPs complaining about the situation, but management has ignored our request for more staff now for over two years.
"The situation is becoming untenable and patients are suffering unnecessary pain and disability unless they have the means to access an appointment in the private sector," Prof Theis told the ODT last year.
A statement from Health Minister Jonathan Coleman said that overall elective surgery volumes continued to increase.
