KEY POINTS:
The Waitemata District Health Board came under fire today as National MP Jonathan Coleman claimed the corridors of the North Shore Hospital resembled a refugee holding camp.
Sick, often elderly, patients lay on numbered makeshift trolleys in corridors waiting hours for beds, and the situation was at "disaster level", Dr Coleman told a parliamentary health select committee today.
This was denied by representatives on the board at the committee meeting, including chairwoman Kaye McKelvie and adult health services clinical director John Cullen.
The board has been battling criticism since last month, when members of its senior medical advisory committee wrote a letter to the New Zealand Herald saying a lack of planning had led to a severe shortage of beds and staff, treatment delays and postponed operations at Waitakere and North Shore hospitals.
The doctors expressed concern conditions would only get worse with the onset of winter.
A report presented to the committee today said every triage 1 emergency department patient who arrived at the board's hospitals in the first quarter of 2007 was seen immediately, as per Ministry of Health-set targets.
Triage is a system of sorting patients according to need, triage 1 being the most urgent.
However, only 58 per cent of triage 2 people were seen within the recommended time frame of 10 minutes, down from 65 per cent in the same period for 2006. The target is to see 80 per cent of patients within the time limit.
And less than half (47 per cent) of triage 3 patients were seen within the recommended 30 minutes, down from 57 per cent last year. The target is 75 per cent.
Dr Cullen said the situation was not acceptable but denied things were at disaster level, saying the board was providing a safe service.
In response to questions over how the hospital would cope in winter, chief executive Dave Davies said he thought all large hospitals in New Zealand had the same concerns.
He said he could not guarantee that this winter would be better, but said plans were in place to increase the number of beds, considerably, and to continue increasing them over the next few years.
There were 68 new beds due to come on stream between May and September.
They also had plans in place to improve flow through the hospital, and to recruit and retain more staff.
"I don't think peaks in demand are easy to deal with," he said.
Dr Cullen said problems in the Emergency Department had been compounded by a shortage of emergency care doctors - a problem that had been addressed.
Dr Coleman said he had heard reports of doctors having to make up beds as North Shore Hospital was so short of staff, and asked about the turnover of senior doctors at the board.
Ms McKelvie said an average turnover of any business was 10 per cent, and the turnover at the health board was 14 per cent.
It was usual for New Zealand professionals to travel.
Dr Cullen agreed with Dr Coleman that historically senior doctors had tended to remain with one hospital but said that was changing.
"Certainly in some specialities they come and they stay.
"There are some specialities within that where there may be a faster turnover, and I think that that would be related to those specialities where they are having particular difficulties with obtaining the numbers of junior staff."
- NZPA
