Hospital tells sick to go to GPs

By MARTIN JOHNSTON and JULIET ROWAN

An Auckland hospital which has been swamped, like others around the country, with record numbers of sick people has launched a $10,000 advertising campaign warning people of the crisis.

North Shore Hospital is taking out ads in today's Weekend Herald and other papers urging people to see a GP at the first sign of illness.

The move is a bid to relieve pressure on its emergency department, where non-urgent patients face waiting more than eight hours to be seen and attendances have been up by 20 per cent in the past month.

"Save the emergency department for emergencies," says the ad, entitled "Crisis at North Shore Hospital".

A department nurse, who asked not to be named, said yesterday staff shortages and patient overcrowding were so bad that the risk of patients dying from medical errors had risen significantly.

"Where nurses should have four or five patients, they have 12 to 15, so people are having things missed and have to stay in hospital longer," she said.

"It's the ability to keep a close eye on patients, give them their drugs in a timely manner. I'm not suggesting anyone has died, but their care would be a lot better if it was timely and nurses weren't having to climb over other patients to get to them."

Because of the stress, her GP sent her on two weeks' sick leave last month, after she asked for that or Prozac.

The ads say the hospital is struggling through its busiest winter ever. They show patients languishing on beds or armchairs in a crowded emergency department corridor.

The hospital's 34-bed wards each have up to 42 patients. On more than 60 days this year, the 54-bed emergency department has had to cope with more than 130 patients, yet it is short of 15 fulltime-equivalent nurses.

A nationwide shortage of nurses has been made worse by many falling sick. Overtime and agency nurses are used to fill gaps, but many nurses' shifts remain unfilled.

Most of the country's big public hospitals have faced similar problems in recent weeks and like North Shore have postponed elective surgery to cope.

A surge of flu and other respiratory complaints such as pneumonia has been blamed.

"We're the busiest we've ever been," said Dot McKeen, Middlemore Hospital's service manager for acute care and resources.

"It's not a pleasant place to be. We're averaging 240 to 250 a day in emergency. Normally it's 190 to 200.

"Primary care out in the community are overloaded too. Some are sending us their patients because they have got too many."

Auckland City Hospital postponed some elective surgery on Monday and Tuesday, but became a little quieter later in the week.

Waikato Hospital, whose emergency department saw a record 4500 patients last month, had another extremely busy week and postponed some elective surgery.

An Auckland medical officer of health, Dr Nicholas Jones, said the number of flu cases had continued to rise.

One in 700 people sought GP help for flu-like illness in the week to last Sunday and the actual number affected was probably five to 10 times higher.

The southern South Island was hit harder than Auckland.

Dr Jones said the dominant strain was the A Fujian, which emerged in China in 2002 and reached New Zealand last year.

"It's also one of the three strains in the vaccine. That gives us optimism the numbers are not likely to go a lot higher."

The North Shore nurse blamed her hospital's crisis on "not enough nurses, shite wages, too many patients and not enough beds".

North Shore general manager Rachel Haggerty said the hospital would cope better once Waitakere Hospital's upgrading was complete next February, adding 72 beds.

COLD OR FLU

* Symptoms of influenza.

- Sudden onset, high fever lasting several days, dry cough, often severe muscle aches, headache, commonly with chest discomfort and extreme exhaustion. Weakness and tiredness can last two to three weeks. Some people also have a congested nose, sneezing and a sore throat.

* Symptoms of a cold.

- Gradual onset and hacking cough, commonly with a congested nose and sore throat. Sneezing is usual. Fever and headache are rare. Muscle aches tend to be slight, weakness and tiredness are mild, and chest discomfort can be moderate.