Gisborne Hospital busy but planned care proceeding

Hospital Main Entrance

Gisborne Hospital has been “pretty full” in the last three weeks.

That is how Hauora Tairāwhiti chief executive Jim Green described the hospital in his final report to his board as the country's 20 district health boards were incorporated into the new Health NZ entity, which officially came into being across the country on Friday.

In his report for May, Mr Green said there had been a recent “upflick in the number of acute admissions”.

Hauora Tairāwhiti was not like some other boards, where planned care (elective services) had been stopped.

There had only been occasional days when planned care had temporarily stopped because of the number of staff absent on sick leave, but “generally planned care has proceeded”.

Mr Green said there had been a pronounced, sustained and slow decline in internal medicine admissions since 2017.

That would be seen as “absolutely remarkable” by other health boards.

It indicated the work carried out across the many areas of Hauora Tairāwhiti and how the board over many years had looked at “how do we do better for Tairawhiti people”, and how health services had developed.

“While it may not have resulted in black ink at the bottom of pages (financial surplus), it certainly made a difference in terms of red ink, meaning that we have been able to deal more effectively with the number of people needing hospitalisation in Tairāwhiti.”

Another good trend was that paediatric medicine acute admissions were declining.

There had a winter rise although Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) had not yet arrived, he reported

Hospital admissions were a “reasonably good barometer” of what was happening out in the community, and whether health services were improving.

“We are starting to make some inroads on those things that drive people to need admission to hospital.”

Mr Green said Emergency Department arrivals had not reduced although, over the year, arrivals had “flattened off”.

The primary care sector was under a lot of pressure, as was the entire health system.

“We have to be better at managing that demand. Being able to recruit more people would be helpful.”

Mr Green said the financial situation showed “the usual picture”.

The board was slightly behind budget to date and the latest projection (end of the financial year, which was June 30) was about $700,000 behind budget.

Mr Green said the board was “starting to get hurt” by the negative adjustment of $1.2 million in Pharmac funding.

For the month ended May 30, the board recorded a deficit of $1.439m compared to a budgeted deficit of $1.155m.

The year-to-date deficit was $9.498m compared to a budgeted deficit of $7.040m, which is a variance of $2.457m.

Hauora Tairāwhiti has an approved budget deficit for the 2021-2022 financial year of $7.83m.