KEY POINTS:
A systems error at Wanganui Hospital that saw more than 600 people miss out on specialist treatment was "absolutely unacceptable", Health Minister Pete Hodgson said yesterday.
The ministry has come under fire from the National Party in the wake of extreme staff shortages, service cuts and an administrative error which potentially put hundreds of lives at risk by failing to book patients for specialist treatment recommended by their GPs.
An outgoing senior specialist has labelled the hospital "unsafe".
National Party health spokesman Tony Ryall has challenged Mr Hodgson to take urgent action or resign.
In response, Mr Hodgson said a comprehensive review of the Whanganui District Health Board was already under way.
"Significant" changes were expected as a result of the review.
"The National Party appears to be unaware of the large amount of work under way at Whanganui and the level of involvement from the Ministry of Health," Mr Hodgson said.
Mr Hodgson said the DHB had agreed to a full review as one of the conditions for a $34 million Government investment to redesign Wanganui Hospital.
Significant improvements in the configuration of services - including paediatrics - as well as progress on the DHB's deficit would be required before final approval of the hospital's redesign was granted.
"The serious error in the processing of patient records is absolutely unacceptable," he said.
"I have been advised that senior clinicians disagree with the reported comments of one of their outgoing colleagues that the hospital is clinically unsafe."
Dr Clive Solomon said the hospital did not have enough obstetricians to attend emergency pregnant patients, paediatricians, junior and senior doctors to staff the hospital, or adequate access to radiology.
"There comes a time when someone has to say: 'Stop, assess and ask for help'," he said. "This time has come for me and Wanganui Hospital. The hospital has never been this unsafe, morale as low or staff so short."
Mr Ryall said the Whanganui DHB was stumbling from crisis to crisis: paediatric and obstetric, emergency department, ambulance, and home care services, cuts to services for the elderly, cuts to hospice funding, major administrative failures and now only half the number of junior doctors.
DHB chief executive Memo Musa said the hospital was undertaking a recruitment drive to boost staff numbers.
As from today, it will only have about nine junior doctors instead of the 18 it is entitled to.
- NZPA
