Breast lump removal waiting times in Australian public hospitals

The national median wait for breast lump removal in Australian public hospitals was 17 days in 2024–25 — from 6 days at St Vincent's On the Park to 47 days at Bankstown Lidcombe Hospital. The source publishes this surgery as “Breast lump - excision and/or biopsy”.

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

Across Australia, the median wait for breast lump removal in public hospitals was 17 days in 2024–25, from 10691 surgeries. 0.2% of people waited more than 365 days. 105 public hospitals published a median wait for it.

Compare this near you → On the compare page, pick “Breast lump - excision and/or biopsy” and type your suburb to see the public hospitals within reach, ordered by their published wait. Nothing you type there is kept.

State by state

Bars show the median wait in days. The vertical line at 17 days marks the national median.

Victoria14 days
New South Wales19 days
Western Australia19 days
Queensland20 days
South Australia20 days
Tasmania22 days
Northern Territorynot published

Breast lump - excision and/or biopsy in public hospitals by state and territory, 2024–25. States with the same median share a rank. Every figure was released on 2026-05-28.
Rank	State or territory	Median wait	Waited more than 365 days	Surgeries
1	Victoria	14 days	0.3%	3464 surgeries
2	New South Wales	19 days	0.1%	2784 surgeries
2	Western Australia	19 days	0.2%	1255 surgeries
4	Queensland	20 days	0.3%	2328 surgeries
4	South Australia	20 days	0.3%	626 surgeries
6	Tasmania	22 days	0.0%	232 surgeries
unranked	Northern Territory	not published	not published	not published

How the wait has changed

Australia
VIC
NSW
WA

View these numbers as a table

Median wait in days for Breast lump - excision and/or biopsy, by financial year. Every figure was released on 2026-05-28.
Reference period	Australia (days)	VIC (days)	NSW (days)	WA (days)
2016–17	15	13	16	15
2017–18	15	13	17	18
2018–19	16	14	18	19
2019–20	16	14	16	18
2020–21	16	13	19	17
2021–22	16	14	17	16
2022–23	17	14	18	18
2023–24	17	14	20	18
2024–25	17	14	19	19

Common questions

How long is the wait for breast lump removal in a public hospital?

The national median was 17 days in 2024–25 — half of people waited less than that, half waited longer. State medians ranged from 14 days in Victoria to 22 days in Tasmania.

Which public hospital has the shortest wait for breast lump removal?

Of the 105 public hospitals that published a median for 2024–25, St Vincent's On the Park reported the shortest (6 days) and Bankstown Lidcombe Hospital the longest (47 days). A shorter median is not a recommendation — how to read these figures.

How many people waited more than a year?

0.2% of people who had breast lump removal in an Australian public hospital in 2024–25 waited more than 365 days.

What is not here

Public hospitals only. Private hospitals do not report to this collection, so their waiting times cannot be compared here.

The source calls this collection “elective surgery”. This site calls it planned surgery, because the surgery is planned in advance rather than optional — the methodology explains the wording.