Admitted patient care 2015–16: Australian hospital statistics

In 2015–16, there were about 10.6 million separations in Australia’s public and private hospitals—about 59% occurred in public hospitals. There were 30 million days of patient care reported for admitted patients—20.2 million in public hospitals and 9.7 million in private hospitals. Between 2011–12 and 2015–16: the number of separations rose by 3.5% on average each year; the number of public patient separations rose by an average of 2.9% each year, compared with 5.5% per year for separations paid for by private health insurance; the median waiting time for elective surgery for public patients in a public hospital was 42 days, while it was 20 days for patients who used private health insurance to fund all or part of their admission.