Discectomy waiting times

Public hospital waiting times for Discectomy, nationally and by state.

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

Across Australia, the median wait for Discectomy in public hospitals was 41 days in 2024–25, from 1400 surgeries. 4.5% of people waited more than 365 days. 30 public hospitals published a median wait for it.

State by state

Bars show the median wait in days. The vertical line at 41 days marks the national median.

Victoria29 days
Queensland37 days
New South Wales56 days
Western Australia62 days
Northern Territorynot published
South Australianot published

Discectomy 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	29 days	1.9%	264 surgeries
2	Queensland	37 days	0.6%	483 surgeries
3	New South Wales	56 days	8.8%	500 surgeries
4	Western Australia	62 days	10.5%	105 surgeries
unranked	Northern Territory	not published	not published	20 surgeries
unranked	South Australia	not published	not published	28 surgeries

How the wait has changed

Australia
VIC
QLD
NSW

View these numbers as a table

Median wait in days for Discectomy, by financial year. Every figure was released on 2026-05-28.
Reference period	Australia (days)	VIC (days)	QLD (days)	NSW (days)
2016–17	41	45	31	56
2017–18	42	58	28	60
2018–19	43	47	36	53
2019–20	49	47	43	56
2020–21	49	33	46	52
2021–22	49	34	45	54
2022–23	60	57	32	81
2023–24	48	45	37	62
2024–25	41	29	37	56

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.