Elderly NSW residents are bearing the brunt of a blow-out in elective surgery waiting lists, which have reached a record level of 74,351 patients.
Waiting times for treatment of non-urgent but debilitating conditions have stretched to a record 229 days.
Elective surgery waiting lists are rising at public hospitals as increased activity in emergency departments takes away beds and resources, says the Australian Medical Association, which has called for sustainable funding for both.
Waiting times have increased by eight days since March 2011 when the NSW Liberals and Nationals won government, and the waiting list had leapt by 8300 patients, says NSW Labor's health spokesman Walt Secord.
It was "unacceptable and unfair to older Australians" that half of those waiting for surgery needed orthopaedic surgery (19,056) or cataract removal (15,088), he said.
"Each and every one of those 74,351 people on the waiting lists has an individual story of pain. It is a grandparent who cannot read a newspaper due to cataract or a carer who has mobility problems and cannot look after themselves or a loved one because they need a hip replacement," he said.
Australian Medical Association NSW president Brad Frankum said cataracts were "incredibly limiting" and prevented older people from driving and working until they had received the surgery.
"I know of elderly patients who have spent thousands of dollars to get a procedure done privately that they can't afford, but they can't wait for the public hospital," he said. "It's not fair."
Labor has leapt on the worsening figures at Nepean Hospital, in the key federal electorate of Lindsay, which had the longest wait in metropolitan Sydney of 341 days.
Of the 3092 patients waiting for elective surgery at Nepean, the longest median waits were for knee replacement (369 days) and hip replacement (355 days).
Shoalhaven Hospital, in the Liberal marginal seat of Gilmore, had the longest wait in the state, at 356 days.
Bureau of Health Information data released this month showed 691 fewer elective surgeries were performed in the three months to March 31.
Professor Frankum said it had become fashionable for governments to talk about tying funding to "efficiencies", but the data showed hospitals were already efficient.
"The government needs to put more resources into the system so we can get both emergency and elective done," he said.
NSW Health Minister Jillian Skinner said NSW had the largest caseload of patients in Australia, and more than 30 per cent of national elective surgery admissions.
She said the clinically recommended timeframe for non-urgent surgery was one year, and NSW's median wait for cataract removal (221 days in 2014-15) and orthopaedic surgery (knees 290 days, hips 206 days) was "well within" this timeframe.
Labor said the NSW wait for cataract removal was three-times longer than the rest of Australia, and compared poorly with 35 days in Victoria. Orthopaedic waits were twice as long as Victoria.
Mrs Skinner said: "Despite demand, 97 per cent of elective surgical procedures in NSW public hospitals were performed on time from January to March 2016, compared to 90 per cent at the same time in 2011."
Council of the Ageing NSW chief executive Ian Day said losing mobility was the biggest quality-of-life issue for people aged in their 80s, and led to people becoming isolated and suffering depression.
"If there is a problem with waiting lists now, imagine what the problem will be with an ageing population and many more people coming through needing knee and hip replacements," he said.
Mr Secord said official waiting lists did not begin until an operation was actually scheduled, so the "real picture" of delays was worse, as doctors were advised to delay referring patients to hospitals.
