Cataract surgery waiting time at Royal North Shore Hospital

The median wait for cataract surgery — published by the source as "Cataract extraction (with or without intra-ocular lens insertion)" — at this public hospital in the St Leonards area of New South Wales was 354 days in 2024–25.

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

These figures describe surgery that already happened, not your own wait.

Median wait: 354 days2024–25 · released 28 May 2026
Surgeries completed: 1118 surgeries2024–25 · released 28 May 2026
Waited more than 365 days: 39.8%2024–25 · released 28 May 2026

Half the people who had this surgery here waited less than the median, and half waited longer. Of the 132 public hospitals that published a median wait for this surgery in 2024–25, this one sits at 127 when they are ordered from shortest median to longest. Hospitals with the same median share a rank.

The median wait here has risen from 125 days in 2011–12 to 354 days in 2024–25 — up 183% — while the national median rose from 89 days to 106 days. The nearest public hospital with a shorter published wait is Sydney Hospital / Sydney Eye Hospital, about 6 km away, at 353 days. Here, 39.8% of people waited more than 365 days for this surgery; nationally it was 11.5%.

Compare this near you → On the compare page, pick "Cataract extraction (with or without intra-ocular lens insertion)" and type your suburb to see the public hospitals within reach, ordered by their published wait. Nothing you type there is kept.

How this compares

Median wait, long waits and volume for Cataract extraction (with or without intra-ocular lens insertion), 2024–25.
Where	Median wait	Waited more than 365 days	Surgeries
Royal North Shore Hospital	354 days	39.8%	1118 surgeries
New South Wales (all public hospitals)	268 days	22.0%	32695 surgeries
Australia (all public hospitals)	106 days	11.5%	87841 surgeries

Where the wait is shorter nearby

Bars show the median wait in days. The vertical line at 106 days marks the national median.

Sydney Hospital / Sydney Eye HospitalNSW · about 6 km away353 days
Royal Prince Alfred HospitalNSW · about 8 km away44 days
Concord Repatriation HospitalNSW · about 9 km away36 days
Prince of Wales HospitalNSW · about 12 km away134 days
Auburn HospitalNSW · about 15 km away280 days
The Children's Hospital at WestmeadNSW · about 18 km away44 days
Westmead HospitalNSW · about 19 km away351 days
Bankstown Lidcombe HospitalNSW · about 20 km away307 days

Distances are straight-line, measured between hospital locations, and are approximate. The search covered 250 km.

How the wait has changed

Royal North Shore Hospital
NSW
Australia

View these numbers as a table

Median wait in days for Cataract extraction (with or without intra-ocular lens insertion), by financial year. Every figure was released on 2026-05-28.
Reference period	Royal North Shore Hospital (days)	NSW (days)	Australia (days)
2011–12	125	233	89
2012–13	105	238	89
2013–14	49	218	79
2014–15	42	221	83
2015–16	59	240	93
2016–17	120	224	85
2017–18	212	223	87
2018–19	249	245	84
2019–20	257	286	98
2020–21	196	290	172
2021–22	288	278	158
2022–23	142	282	133
2023–24	224	262	119
2024–25	354	268	106

Public hospitals only — what these figures include and leave out.

All surgery at Royal North Shore Hospital · Cataract surgery across Australia · Cataract surgery in New South Wales