Friday 8 August 2008
ED Staff hit by Winter Illnesses
With winter ailments affecting both the community and SDHB Emergency Department staff over the last couple of days,
Southland Hospital is asking for the public to please keep the emergency department for emergencies only.
Dr Martin Watts, Clinical Director, Emergency Medicine said due to normal winter ailments, such as colds and flu, the ED
has been under extra pressure with more people presenting at ED and staff working extra shifts to cover for team members
who were also feeling under the weather.
“Anyone who is seriously ill or who has an emergency situation should not hesitate about calling an ambulance or coming
to the hospital’s emergency department , he said.”
“However we’d like the public and our staff to take care of themselves so are encouraging everyone to approach a health
care professional such as your GP early, in the first instance, or call Healthline for 24 hour free health advice on
0800 611 116, rather than waiting for their condition to worsen.”
ENDS
Note:
This message is for the named person's use only. It may contain confidential, proprietary or legally privileged
information. No confidentiality or privilege is waived or lost by any mistransmission. If you receive this message in
error, please immediately delete it and all copies of it from your system, destroy any hard copies of it and notify the
sender. You must not, directly or indirectly, use, disclose, distribute, print, or copy any part of this message if you
are not the intended recipient. Otago and Southland DHB's reserve the right to monitor all e-mail communications through
its networks.
Any views expressed in this message are those of the individual sender, except where the message states otherwise and
the sender is authorized to state them to be the views of any such entity.
Thank You.