Can I check my position on a public hospital waiting list online?

There is no national portal. Your listing is held by the hospital's planned-surgery booking office — call them with your hospital reference number. Some states offer patient portals showing appointments or referral status; the booking office can say what applies to you.

Does Surgery Waits know where I am on the waiting list?

No. Surgery Waits republishes official statistics about waits that already happened. It has no access to any hospital's live waiting list or to anything about you.

How to check where you are on a surgery waiting list

There is no national website where you can look up your place in the queue — and this site cannot see it either. The published figures are medians of surgery that already happened; your own listing is held by the hospital that put you on its list. Here is who to ask, and what to ask for.

Who actually holds your listing

The hospital's waiting list or admissions office. Your listing lives here. Call the hospital and ask for the elective or planned surgery booking office. Have your hospital reference number ready — it is on your appointment letters.
Your surgeon's rooms or the outpatient clinic. They can tell you whether anything about your listing has changed, and whether your urgency category still matches your condition.
Your general practitioner (GP). Your GP can follow up on your behalf, and — importantly — can tell the hospital if your condition is getting worse, which can change your urgency category.

Some states also offer online patient portals that show upcoming appointments or referral status. Whether one exists, and what it shows, differs by state and hospital — the booking office can tell you what applies to you.

What to ask

Am I on the waiting list, and from what date?
What urgency category am I, and what is its recommended time? (What the categories mean.)
Am I marked "ready for care"? If you are recorded as unavailable — for travel or another illness — that time may not count the same way.
What should I do if my condition gets worse while I wait?

What "your place in the queue" really means

A waiting list is not a single queue. People in more urgent categories are treated sooner, and a hospital may run separate lists per specialty or surgeon. So "you are number 40" means less than it sounds — the more useful questions are your category, its recommended time, and how often that hospital meets it. That last figure is published, and it is on the urgency category pages for every public hospital.

If the published wait where you are listed is long, it is fair to ask your GP whether a referral to another public hospital — even one in another state — would make sense for you.