Australians can expect longer wait times when they next visit hospital, even if they need urgent surgery, according to a new report card from Australia’s leading medical union. Dr. Omar Khorshid, president of the Australian Medical Association (AMA), said that despite a drop in patient volumes during the COVID-19 pandemic, the hospital system’s performance did not improve. “What’s remarkable about this year’s report card is it shows hospitals continued to struggle in 2020 when Australians stayed home, and we weren’t dealing with the highly contagious Delta variant or high COVID-19 hospitalisations,” Khorshid said in a press release on Nov. 5. Korshid said unless dramatic action was taken to “help our hospitals, this is as ‘good as it gets’ when it comes to hospital performance.” Some key findings from the Public Hospital Report Card 2021 (pdf) outlined how Australians seeking “Urgent” emergency treatment—which needs to be carried out in 30 minutes …