Hospital faces winter pressure

Winter sickness is putting pressure on the Rotorua Lakes DHB.

Winter illnesses and injuries are continuing to put pressure on Rotorua Hospital - with just a handful of beds now available to patients.

Yesterday afternoon the hospital was nearly at full capacity in the adult ward with two spare beds, while the children's ward also had just a few spare beds.

Lakes District Health Board communications officer Sue Wilkie said pressure had not eased since last week, with the number of patients in hospital increasing dramatically in the past few weeks.

The hospital had been particularly busy with sick kids over the past fortnight and that pressure had not dropped.

In the week to Sunday, 671 cases were seen through the emergency department.

Miss Wilkie said yesterday they were at "near full capacity" but it was expected some patients would be discharged, which would free up a small number of beds.

"Patients in emergency department who are to be admitted to hospital will wait in the emergency department until a bed becomes available."

She said if there were more patients than they had beds for, they would implement an "escalation plan".

Miss Wilkie said it was "pretty much business as usual" over a busy winter.

She said figures were not available on how many patients there had been since the hospital started offering free after-hours medical services for 6-12 year olds.

The health board started offering the interim service to families after Lakes Primecare opted out of providing free after-hours medical care for the age group.

"It is not ideal for people who would normally access primary care to be included within ... presentations for an emergency department service," she said.