By MONIQUE DEVEREUX and MARTIN JOHNSTON
Patients are pouring into emergency departments at such a rate that at least one hospital accepts that errors may be caused by a lack of staff.
The Herald has a copy of an internal nursing e-mail which says the Waitemata District Health Board, which runs North Shore Hospital, appears to support nurses in their concerns about general shortages across the hospital.
"If an error occurs (which we all hope does not, of course) the organisation has to take into account the contributing factors and the impact of poor staffing," it says.
"Staff should be assured of our support and acceptance of the situation in which staff are placed."
The e-mail also says management understands that staff are not happy and "can empathise with their tiredness and frustration that yet again there is inadequate staffing."
Nurses at North Shore, who do not wish to be named, say two young women friends who were in a car accident were asked to share a bed to make room for an elderly patient who would otherwise have had to rest on an "old trolley in the corridor."
One senior nurse said: "This is more than just the standard winter intake ...
"I've worked with low staff numbers and inadequate resources before, but never to the extent where patients are asked to share beds."
Two other nurses who contacted the Herald confirmed the bed-sharing incident.
Last night, Waitemata Health spokeswoman Caroline Mackersey said she was not aware of the bed sharing.
But the emergency department did overflow at times and patients have had to be treated while on trolleys in the corridor.
The problem of too many patients is not confined to the North Shore.
In the Waikato, emergency patient numbers are up 3000 from the last financial year. In Auckland Hospital's emergency department, beds have been set up in the corridor and are used every day.
Nurses have had to number off sections of corridors to keep track of patients.
The clinical director of the emergency department, Dr Peter Freeman, said that the corridor system had been used since last winter.
He believed the increase in patients was due to the growing number of people using emergency departments as their first port of call.
This has also been identified in South Auckland, where patient numbers have grown 30 per cent at Middlemore Hospital since November.
The North Shore nurses said that during a recent overcrowding peak, the hospital alerted Middlemore and Auckland Hospitals that it was going on bypass, meaning it would not take in emergency cases other than those where the patient needed, or threatened to need, resuscitation.
* More than 1100 patients who were about to receive letters delaying their surgery have been given a reprieve.The patients are waiting for all types of surgery, from hernia repairs, to hip replacements.
After talks with Health Ministry officials, the Counties Manukau District Health Board, which runs Middlemore, said it would be able to maintain its level of elective surgery.
The board chairman, Ross Keenan, said the Herald's article revealing the letters plan had "triggered some interesting responses," allowing the board to clarify money issues with the Government.
AdvertisementAdvertise with NZME.
Latest from New Zealand
Afternoon quiz: March 2024 was NZ's coldest in how many years?
Test your knowledge with the Herald's afternoon quiz.