A leading Sydney cancer surgeon says he has four patients whose conditions have become inoperable this year while they were waiting for treatment, as doctors at St George Hospital rebel against what they say is chronic underfunding.

The hospital is slashing surgeries and closing beds, despite being the worst-performing major hospital in the state for on-time surgery. Doctors said it was ''bursting at the seams'' and in desperate need of renovations.

Sounding the warning: David Morris. Credit:Tamara Dean

Cancer surgeon David Morris, who performs peritonectomy surgeries for all of NSW at St George, said four of his patients had developed inoperable cancer while waiting this year and he had 38 on his list. He said he needed to increase his operations to keep up.

''Yet we are operating at half the level we were at the beginning of this year,'' he said.