After-hours surgery at Kaitaia Hospital to cease

By TONY GEE

Fears for patient safety are stopping surgery at Kaitaia Hospital at nights and weekends.

Weekend and after-hours surgery at Kaitaia Hospital has been suspended from today because the Northland District Health Board fears for patient safety.

The decision, described as temporary by chairwoman Lynette Stewart, means that patients needing urgent or semi-urgent surgery after 5pm on weekdays or at weekends will have to go to Whangarei Hospital, which is 155km away or over two hours' drive from Kaitaia.

Depending on an assessment of their condition by an after-hours doctor at Kaitaia Hospital, patients will be taken to Whangarei by either helicopter or ambulance.

That already happens in some cases but is now expected to occur more frequently.

Elective and daytime surgical services will continue at Kaitaia as usual.

The general manager of Northland Health, David Meates, said it had known for some time that the way in which after-hours and weekend surgery was covered at Kaitaia was "fragile".

Developments in the past few weeks, including an inability to cover after-hours anaesthetics, meant surgery at night and weekends could not continue because of the risk to patients.

"It is not uncommon to have key staff on call 24 hours a day, six days a week," said Mr Meates. "Having staff work these kinds of hours is inappropriate and unsafe."

Northland Health had employed 53 doctors, mostly as locums, during the past year to maintain 24-hour surgical cover at Kaitaia.

In past months, the hospital's cover had continued only because of the expected arrival of two doctors for fulltime appointment. Both ultimately declined to take the Kaitaia jobs.

Normally Kaitaia Hospital has two or three acute after-hours cases and six acute within-hours cases requiring surgery each week.

nzherald.co.nz/hospitals