Bay of Plenty: Surgery waiting list doubles in a year at Tauranga and Whakatāne hospitals

Tauranga Hospital. Photo / George Novak

The number of people waiting more than four months for elective surgery at Bay of Plenty hospitals has doubled in the past year.

Data from the Ministry of Health shows 1692 people have waited more than four months for surgery at Tauranga or Whakatāne hospital as of the end of June, up from 636 in June 2021.

In June 2018, just 21 people had waited more than four months.

The ministry requires that all patients given a commitment to treatment should receive it within four months.

Bay of Plenty MP Todd Muller said he received calls from people weekly who were in "quite a lot of pain" and were still on the waiting list.

"They are understandably really upset," said Muller.

"They are more ringing out of exasperation and desperation, that they're in a lot of pain, they have reached the threshold of pain, that means they're on the waiting list, but they just can't get in [for surgery]."

For non-acute surgeries, eligibility is based on clinical priority assessment criteria (CPAC) and a threshold must be met before a person is entitled to publicly funded surgery.

The CPAC varies for different surgeries and between regions.

Muller expressed his frustration at what he viewed as a "lack of planning" after the first Covid-19 lockdown in March 2020.

Bay of Plenty MP Todd Muller. Photo / George Novak

The data showed the number of people waiting more than four months for surgery in May 2020 was 1055. It had jumped from 425 in February.

During the lockdown elective surgeries were cancelled.

By December 2020, the figure had dropped to 362, but since then it had risen month on month.

In Muller's view: "Clearly the investment hasn't gone in to ensure that people who need these operations are prioritised.

"We absolutely need to have sufficient numbers of doctors and nurses and specialists, in particular, invested in the system to be able to do this."

Local Democracy Reporting asked Muller what he thought needed to happen to reduce wait times.

He replied: "You need to invest in frontline services. Not huge, great big, centralising restructuring bureaucracies.

"You need more doctors, more nurses, more healthcare support workers and more operations being done, because that's what the population needs."

The restructuring Muller referred to is the health reforms that came into force on July 1, where the country's 20 district health boards were disestablished and management of the health system handed to Te Whatu Ora - Health New Zealand.

In response to Muller's comments on the reforms and funding, a Te Whatu Ora spokesperson said the reforms over the next two years were being funded from existing baselines.

"The interim NZ Health plan, to be launched soon, will map a pathway to putting the reforms into effect without compromising the level of care currently provided by hospitals and our primary care providers," the spokesperson said.

"In addition, a single national health service will be much more efficient in the long run, saving the health system money."

Local Democracy Reporting asked Te Whatu Ora Hauora a Toi Bay of Plenty, formerly the Bay of Plenty District Health Board, what was being done to reduce the wait times.

Hauora a Toi Bay of Plenty chief operating officer Bronwyn Anstis said all patients were treated in order of clinical priority.

"For non-urgent planned care patients, we are offering the opportunity of outsourcing to private providers and managing our theatre and procedure room capacity closely to ensure we can offer as many patients treatment as possible," she said.

"As requested by the Planned Care Taskforce, all long wait patients are being clinically reviewed to ensure the priority allocated remains current."

Anstis said the cause of the increased surgical wait times was the impact of Covid lockdowns, unplanned leave due to Covid and winter illnesses, vacancies, sustained high acute demand and sustained high occupancy in the two hospitals.

She said Hauora a Toi was undertaking a review to determine how long it would take to reduce the wait times.

Any patient experiencing a change in their condition should check in with their referrer, who could provide Hauora a Toi with additional information if needed.

Muller expressed concern the backlog would be addressed by raising the CPAC threshold.

"What I don't want to see happen is suddenly them change the threshold and make people need to be completely unable to walk before they can qualify for a hip replacement, which is another way I've seen it done in the past."

Anstis responded: "There has been no change to access thresholds in response to managing those patients currently on the wait list."

Earlier this month Health Minister Andrew Little announced a range of measures to combat health workforce shortages.

These included establishing an international recruitment service, paying up to $10,000 each for nurses to remove financial barriers to completing New Zealand registration assessments, and a six-month bridging programme for doctors coming to New Zealand, with paid salaries including during six-week clinical induction and three-month training internships.

The Government also planned to double the number of nurse practitioners trained each year from about 50 to 100, use the Shortland Street television show to attract young people into nursing, and encourage nurses to return to practice.

Muller described the Shortland Street campaign as a "distracting sideshow".

In his view: "They should open the tap on local GP and nurse training and make it easier for overseas specialists to call Tauranga home."

The Te Whatu Ora spokesperson said the workforce measures recently announced by the Government would smooth the pathway for domestic and international health workforce candidates.

"More doctors and supporting staff will mean more surgeries each week across Aotearoa in the long term.

"It will, however, take some time for the impact of the new measures to flow on to wait times specifically."

- Public Interest Journalism funded through NZ On Air.