Entrenched specialist shortages affect southern DHB cardiology service

“The cardiology service at Southern District Health Board is obviously in a vulnerable state if the DHB is being forced to consider sending cardiac MRI patients to private hospitals,” says Ian Powell, Executive Director of the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists (ASMS).

He was commenting on an article in the Otago Daily Times that the DHB was considering such a move as it faced the prospect of losing the second of two specially trained cardiologists: http://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/336328/cardiac-mris-maybe-done-privately.

“This is in direct response to the shortage of specialist cardiologists brought to a head by the departure of two cardiologists. It is part of wider shortages of specialists in our public hospitals.

“The net result is to have to spend extra money on using private hospitals. Specialist shortages are financially wasteful.”

It’s not the first time that the ASMS has raised concerns about the DHB’s cardiology workforce. In April last year the ASMS wrote to Southern DHB to express concern about the lack of adequate specialist staffing for echocardiology.

“Until we have a strategy to address our entrenched specialist shortages in public hospitals these sorts of risks to patient care and financial wastage are going to continue.”

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