DOCTORS STRANDED

FRUSTRATED: consultant respiratory physician Dr Peter Brown, left, and consultant cardiologist Dr Tim Roberts have not been able to fly out of Queenstown after several cancelled flights. They are due back Wednesday. Picture supplied

Gisborne's only respiratory specialist is stranded in Queenstown after four cancelled flights.

Consultant respiratory physician Dr Peter Brown and colleague Dr Tim Roberts, a consultant cardiologist at Gisborne Hospital, tried to get home when the snap lockdown cut their skiing holiday short last week.

Dr Brown said two flight bookings were quickly cancelled. They went to the airport at 6am on Friday for their third flight booking to find it cancelled, while a fourth booking for Saturday was also cancelled.

Air New Zealand said it put extra flights on to get people out of Queenstown and while many were booked out, there were plenty of spare seats on the final flights to Wellington and Auckland.

Hauora Tairawhiti DHB said it had a team of people who could respond to Covid-19 in Gisborne, and access to respiratory advisers at Waikato if necessary.

The DHB said Dr Brown had been “instrumental” in setting up systems and processes to respond to Covid-19 at Gisborne Hospital and these were still in place in his absence.

Dr Brown said he was frustrated at not being able to get back to Gisborne under these circumstances.

“If there was any Covid crisis in the region (Tairawhiti), then I would want to be there,” Dr Brown said.

“Fortunately that's not likely to be the case in the next few days but we don't know what's going to happen over the course of the next week.”

Dr Brown said New Zealand had taken the right approach in locking down but said essential workers still needed to be able to get home.

“I think it's the right approach but essential workers still need to be able to get to where they are working.

“I don't think that we're the only two doctors that are stranded.”

Dr Brown and Dr Roberts are booked to fly home to Gisborne on Wednesday.

Dr Brown said he was initially concerned about the Wednesday flight not going ahead but said those concerns were receding with news of the case numbers.

Air New Zealand chief executive officer Greg Foran said they ran eight extra flights out of Queenstown on Friday, after the Government announced a 2 hour extension for travellers to get home.

This was in addition to four extra services on Thursday.

“We estimated there were still around 600 people requiring flights out of Queenstown after the initial 48-hour period, so we were confident the additional 900 seats ensured there were options for those who needed it,” Mr Foran said.

“Although many of the flights were booked out, there were still 60 seats available on one Queenstown-Auckland service and over 100 on the last Queenstown-Wellington service on Friday.”

Air New Zealand was running a reduced schedule over the next few days to ensure essential workers and cargo could still move around the country, he said. This did not include flights in or out of Queenstown.

“We'll then reassess our schedule in line with any further Government decisions,” he said.

In response, Dr Brown said that didn't reflect their experience of trying to get home.

“To imply that it's our fault that we couldn't get on one of these flights — all I can say is I think we tried and Air New Zealand didn't exactly inform us or book us on to the appropriate flights.”

Hauora Tairawhiti chief executive Jim Green said they had a team who were able to respond to Covid-19 and access to respiratory advisers at Waikato.

Dr Brown had been instrumental in putting systems and processes around Covid-19 into place at the hospital during lockdown last year, Mr Green said.

These processes were still in place.

“We're just going through and reviewing them now, this being a different situation than we were in last year given that we don't actually have any cases of Covid-19 that we know of in the (Gisborne) community, or in the hospital.”

“We would be very pleased to have Peter back,” Mr Green said.

We hope that he can get back soon.”