“It was the first thing I noticed walking through those ED doors – people in the corridors, just sitting there in pain,” the 26-year-old told Local Democracy Reporting.
“All along one side of the wall, people were in beds or chairs and, if they had somebody with them, that person had to stand. You couldn’t walk down the corridor easily because there were so many beds pushed up against each other.
“There were elderly, there were young ones, there were lots of babies. Some of the elderly were in pain – you could see it in their faces or because they were holding on to something real tight.
“They had no privacy at all. Some were having their consultation with the nurse in the corridors. You could hear everything that was being said: what’s wrong with them, their medications, what’s going to happen next – you could literally hear the full conversations they were having. It felt like a breach of their privacy.”
Nepia-Reweti said although her family member was well cared for in a cubicle, she felt “overwhelmed, sad and kind of disappointed” that others had to be treated in the corridor.
“Seeing all the people in the corridors, everybody just rushing around, families getting impatient because they want a room for their ones that are sick, it felt like we were in a disaster movie.
“A massive change needs to happen in there. It’s too small. They need more rooms so people don’t need to wait in the corridors.”
In July, broadcaster Te Waiata Mason waited three hours in the ED waiting room before being triaged, then waited further before being admitted to ED. The 24-year-old was taken into the Acute Assessment Unit.
“There were already people in the hallways. I was only in that room for about 15 minutes, then I was put in the hallway because someone else that needed the room was coming through on an ambulance.
“The hallway felt so full and crowded. It was overwhelming – one, because I wasn’t great myself; two, it was just so full-on and loud and so bright, and I just wanted to sleep.
“I only saw down two hallways but there was one person on a bed and patients on seats and wheelchairs all down the corridor.
“A patient with a broken arm was sitting on a chair next to me, and I was on another seat with my head in a bucket.”
Mason said although the atmosphere was calm, it was clear that staff were “under pressure”.
“It was a lack of space, beds, resources, even staff. You could tell they’d been working hard and were rushed. Just as an example, three different nurses asked if I wanted an ice-block but none of them came back with one.
“But given they were so busy, I felt lucky to be seen. There were babies in there that I wanted to be looked after first.”
Te Whatu Ora Whanganui interim group director operations Kath Fraser-Chapple said the number of ED patients from May to July exceeded capacity by up to 147 per cent. Up to 21 emergency patients at a time did not have designated beds in the department’s 15 treatment cubicles or five beds in the department’s Acute Assessment Unit.
She said average occupancy in July surpassed capacity at 105 per cent for the month, with the highest over-occupancy recorded on July 15 at 147 per cent, followed by July 11 at 146 per cent.
Average occupancy in May reached 97 per cent, with the highest over-occupancy, 135 per cent, on May 8. In June, the average was 96 per cent, with the highest number of patients on June 29 when occupancy was at 134 per cent.
Fraser-Chapple said Whanganui Hospital’s ED was continuing to see high numbers of patients presenting with increasingly complex and acute conditions.
“These pressures are not new, or isolated to the Whanganui district. During the winter months, we expect to see an increase in presentations in ED.
“The occupancy of ED as we’ve currently had is normal for us. We’ve had probably two or three weeks of really, really high presentations and demand but we’ve also had very sick people in the hospital.”
This created a “flow issue.
“We’ve got more people coming in the front door but our beds are full of people that need to stay in hospital.
“For example, on July 15 our ED was at 147 per cent occupancy but our hospital was actually also at 100 per cent. That’s where we are limited in the beds we have available to move people through the emergency department. It creates the over-occupancy in ED where we see people in chairs and corridor beds because we’re out of beds in treatment cubicles.”
Fraser-Chapple said the ED, while busy, was operating within the standards for emergency departments. There were currently no expansion plans.
Asked if the government planned to address physical capacity constraints at Whanganui Hospital’s ED, Health Minister Dr Ayesha Verrall said Labour inherited a health system that had suffered years of underinvestment but had increased health infrastructure funding from $150 million (in 2017) to $1307m in 2022.
“Four projects have been funded in Whanganui since 2019 worth $3.5 million,” Verrall said.
“They include the Te Kopae Mental Health Facility Refurbishment. Two further projects – the Infusion Therapy Unit and Waimarino Heath Centre extension – are being designed.”
* Public Interest Journalism funded through NZ On Air
