More signs that public hospitals are struggling to cope

17 November 2015

More signs that public hospitals are struggling to cope

“Reports that one of the country’s largest public hospitals is full is yet another sign that hospitals are struggling to cope with the increasing demands being placed on them,” says Ian Powell, Executive Director of the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists (ASMS).

He was commenting on news reports that Manakau’s Middlemore Hospital is overflowing with patients and that GPs have been told to only refer the most urgent cases (http://www.stuff.co.nz/auckland/74069772/middlemore-hospital-full-as-doctors-urged-to-not-refer-patients andhttp://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11546259).

This follows other reports in the past fortnight of big annual leave balances being notched up by public hospitals (http://www.asms.org.nz/news/asms-news/2015/11/09/hospital-annual-leave-balances-a-sign-of-a-system-under-pressure/) and the release of figures showing that 13 out of 20 district health boards have lifted their thresholds for hip and knee surgery since 2012 or since they started recording them (http://www.asms.org.nz/news/asms-news/2015/11/11/figures-highlight-deteriorating-access-to-hip-and-knee-surgery/).

“More and more evidence is emerging of a public health system that’s being held together by the people working in it, and this is simply not sustainable,” says Ian Powell.

“This issue needs more than a few pithy sound-bytes from the Health Minister if New Zealanders are going to be assured of top quality health care in the years ahead.

“The failure of successive governments to invest in the hospital specialist workforce and to deal with longstanding shortages has directly contributed to what we are seeing now.”

ENDS

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