Rehire for our health

A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.

Opinion

Congratulations to The Gisborne Herald for cutting through the “red tape” to reveal just how bad the staffing shortfall is at Gisborne Hospital and how intolerable the working conditions are there for nurses, and doctors.

My commiserations to our general public who think the numbers hospital administrators now admit to must surely be a misquote or misprints — unfortunately they are neither.

We can forget about the validity and integrity of the mandates and staff dismissals of “yesterday” as it is the staffing and healthcare of today we are dealing with.

I believe we are now dealing with political “arm twisting” to prevent re-hiring of mandated staff.

The only real healthcare issue is what level of risk to patients and other staff would we face by having unvaccinated or non-boostered staff re-employed. Presently employed staff will tell you that despite being fully vaccinated they have become infected in their work environment, sometimes two or more times. For some the symptoms of the second or third infections have been manifestly more severe than the initial infection.

The powers that be are no longer claiming that being fully vaccinated will prevent infections, although they say symptoms will be less severe.

If the hospital(s) tried to ease the pressure on existing staff and prevent staff fleeing to better conditions elsewhere by cutting back on bed numbers and clinic services, the effect would likely be patients needing hospitalisation being stood down into community care.

If the hospital(s) do not recruit to fill most of the vacancies, diagnostic clinics and specialist visits will continue to be cut back and waiting times to be assessed will become more horrendous than ever.

Hands up those who have even recently had their diagnosis clinics put back days, weeks, or months? The biggest risk is eventually learning you have a potentially fatal disease, and that so much more could have been done if it had been diagnosed earlier.

I sincerely hope that politicians and the general public will finally see the rehiring of mandated staff as the only feasible and effective way to obtain the greater healthcare benefits for the public.

Dennis Pennefather