Central Otago Health Services Ltd general manager Karyn Penno said she did not know of any ``instances of adverse effect'' on patients, but the wait time for routine, or non-urgent, ultrasounds at Dunstan was now nine months.
The wait time at Dunstan had been about six months for the past three or four years, but had ``gradually been edging out with the population-driven growth in demand'', Ms Penno said.
The hospital was constrained by having only one ultrasound machine.
The Ministry of Health's 2015 National Criteria for Access to Community Radiology document suggests prioritising referrals based on clinical need and defines routine as ``within six weeks'', urgent as ``within 1-2 weeks'' and acute as ``same day''.
The document says the ministry encourages referrers to ``communicate expected wait times to their patients and communicate with radiology services where they feel a referral is other than routine'', but that ``provision of all routine imaging within six weeks is a working towards benchmark in DHB radiology departments''.
She did not answer questions about wait times for ultrasounds at other Otago hospitals or if wait times were causing any clinical difficulties, and the Otago Daily Times was advised it would need to make an Official Information Act request to obtain figures for ultrasound wait times for previous years.
Ms Penno said the long wait times were making scheduling ultrasounds ``very difficult'', although Dunstan was coping as best it could and she was unaware of any adverse clinical effects on patients. Patients who were waiting for routine ultrasounds had been clinically assessed as being able to wait.
``Given the attention I'm aware our clinical staff pay to prioritising (and reprioritising) the wait list, we are doing our best to minimise any potential for negative impact.''
In past years, when Dunstan knew it would end the financial year with a slight surplus, additional ultrasound volumes - . more than was purchased by the SDHB - had been purchased, Ms Penno said.
``However, this year we are only just breaking even, so haven't been able to do that.''
Examples of reasons for routine ultrasounds were people having follow-ups after operations or cancer treatment, or someone who presented with a problem such as knee pain that they had had for a couple of years and had finally mentioned to their GP.
She did not have figures for how many people were on the wait list at Dunstan for routine ultrasounds, but said everyone had an appointment, and there were still spaces for acute and urgent ultrasounds.
``Because we need to leave space for the acute and urgent work that will come in, there are only a certain number of appointment times for `routine' scans available each day, which pushes the date out further than the actual number of available appointments each day would otherwise suggest ...
``We keep slots open every day for acute scans, and Dunstan's sonographer will stay late if necessary to fit an acute scan in. If you need an ultrasound acutely, then you will get it within 24 hours. Urgent scans might wait a bit longer than one or two weeks, but not much. It's the routine scans that get pushed out - the increase in acute and urgent work means that the number of available appointments each day for scans that can wait decreases, and the wait list therefore grows. ''
