Four-year-old Lachlan stops breathing more than 60 times every night. The Harrison boy has enlarged tonsils and adenoids, causing moderately severe sleep apnoea. He has been waiting for elective surgery for more than a year, although as a category three patient he should be treated within 12 months.
His mum Tobie-Jane, who requested her last name not be published, said she had serious concerns about elective surgery waiting lists in Canberra.
''I don't understand why you get put on one [specific] doctor's list. In Queensland for example you go to the outpatients' clinics and they put you on one list for surgery ... the first person on the list gets allocated to the first space a doctor has free regardless of who the doctor is. This is the only place I've lived where you go on a private surgeon's list as a public patient ,'' she said.
The 30-year-old first took her son to see a GP about his enlarged tonsils in January 2009 and was put on a waiting list after seeing a specialist in March 2009.
ACT Health has since told the mother of four the specialist Lachlan saw has one of the longest surgery waiting lists in Canberra.
''Apparently everybody knows this specialist's list is really long, so I have to wonder why I was referred to him in the first place. Also why he made the booking for the surgery if he knows that. The waiting list is 2.5 years for Lachlan's category.''
Health Minister Katy Gallagher was not available for interview yesterday but in an email said surgeons blocked a proposal for a single surgery wait list.
''We have not been able to introduce pooling of the surgeons' lists here. We have tried and they will not allow it. I am meeting with the surgical taskforce soon to discuss further ways to improve efficiency of the elective surgery program,'' Ms Gallagher said.
For more on this story, see the print edition of today's Canberra Times.
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