Some patients requiring acute ultrasounds at Dunedin Hospital are waiting up to eight days to receive them instead of having them on the same day, as recommended by Ministry of Health guidelines, figures released under the Official Information Act show.
But waiting times for ultrasounds at other Southern District Health Board (SDHB) hospitals are mixed.
Long wait times are causing clinical difficulties at some hospitals, but others are exceeding MoH guidelines in some areas.
The Otago Daily Times reported the long wait times at Dunstan Hospital in July, when Central Otago Health Services general manager Karyn Penno said wait times for routine ultrasounds were nine months, the longest they had been in almost four years.
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''.
Following Ms Penno's comments, the Otago Daily Times asked for figures of wait times for ultrasounds at other SDHB hospitals.
It was advised it would need to seek the information through the Official Information Act (OIA), and the information was provided last week.
The figures show Dunstan has the longest wait times for routine ultrasounds of the SDHB hospitals. At the other SDHB hospitals (Dunedin, Southland, Balclutha and Oamaru), the wait times are close to the MOH recommendations, ranging from four to seven weeks, and have remained about the same for the past three years.
Dunstan also has the longest wait times for urgent ultrasounds. Dunstan patients who already have an appointment will wait 4-6 weeks to receive an ultrasound. At Oamaru, patients will receive an urgent ultrasound on the same day, in Southland 1-2 days, Balclutha 1-5 days and Dunedin up to 7-8 days.
The wait times have improved for Southland and Oamaru in the past three years, falling for Dunedin and remaining similar for Balclutha. No comparison was available for Dunstan.
Dunedin Hospital had the longest wait time for acute scans, which are recommended to be done on the same day. They are done on the same day at Balclutha and Dunstan hospitals, usually on the same day at Oamaru and within 1-2 days at Southland. In Dunedin, some patients are seen on the same day, but others wait up to 7-8 days.
The information said Balclutha Hospital was coping with ultrasound wait times with no clinical difficulties; Oamaru was ''managing well'', although ''the addition of urgent requests can make day-to-day scanning very busy, depending on demand''; in Dunedin and Southland ''patients are scanned based on their clinical need and urgency in as timely manner as possible''; and at Dunstan ''some clinical issues'' had been noted.
SDHB chief executive Chris Fleming was unavailable for comment on the figures.
