Cataract surgery waiting time at Shellharbour Hospital

Median wait, long waits and volumes for cataract surgery — published by the source as “Cataract extraction (with or without intra-ocular lens insertion)” — at this public hospital in the Shellharbour City Centre area of New South Wales, with the nearest alternatives that published a figure.

Reference period 2024–25 (1 July 2024 to 30 June 2025) · released 28 May 2026

Median wait: 319 days2024–25 · released 28 May 2026
Surgeries completed: 2596 surgeries2024–25 · released 28 May 2026
Waited more than 365 days: 22.5%2024–25 · released 28 May 2026

Half the people who had this surgery here waited less than the median, and half waited longer. Of the 132 public hospitals that published a median wait for this surgery in 2024–25, this one sits at 116 when they are ordered from shortest median to longest. Hospitals with the same median share a rank.

The median wait here has risen from 218 days in 2011–12 to 319 days in 2024–25 — up 46% — while the national median rose from 89 days to 106 days. The nearest public hospital with a shorter published wait is Bowral Hospital, about 39 km away, at 204 days. Here, 22.5% of people waited more than 365 days for this surgery; nationally it was 11.5%.

Compare this near you → On the compare page, pick “Cataract extraction (with or without intra-ocular lens insertion)” and type your suburb to see the public hospitals within reach, ordered by their published wait. Nothing you type there is kept.

How this compares

Median wait, long waits and volume for Cataract extraction (with or without intra-ocular lens insertion), 2024–25.
Where	Median wait	Waited more than 365 days	Surgeries
Shellharbour Hospital	319 days	22.5%	2596 surgeries
New South Wales (all public hospitals)	268 days	22.0%	32695 surgeries
Australia (all public hospitals)	106 days	11.5%	87841 surgeries

Where the wait is shorter nearby

Bars show the median wait in days. The vertical line at 106 days marks the national median.

Bowral HospitalNSW · about 39 km away204 days
Campbelltown HospitalNSW · about 54 km away317 days
Sutherland HospitalNSW · about 63 km away200 days
Bankstown Lidcombe HospitalNSW · about 72 km away307 days
Liverpool HospitalNSW · about 72 km away204 days
Auburn HospitalNSW · about 80 km away280 days
Prince of Wales HospitalNSW · about 80 km away134 days
Royal Prince Alfred HospitalNSW · about 81 km away44 days

Distances are straight-line, measured between hospital locations, and are approximate. The search covered 250 km.

How the wait has changed

Shellharbour Hospital
NSW
Australia

View these numbers as a table

Median wait in days for Cataract extraction (with or without intra-ocular lens insertion), by financial year. Every figure was released on 2026-05-28.
Reference period	Shellharbour Hospital (days)	NSW (days)	Australia (days)
2011–12	218	233	89
2012–13	238	238	89
2013–14	224	218	79
2014–15	271	221	83
2015–16	293	240	93
2016–17	306	224	85
2017–18	310	223	87
2018–19	314	245	84
2019–20	349	286	98
2020–21	306	290	172
2021–22	304	278	158
2022–23	301	282	133
2023–24	307	262	119
2024–25	319	268	106

Public hospitals only — what these figures include and leave out.

All surgery at Shellharbour Hospital · Cataract surgery across Australia · Cataract surgery in New South Wales