$9m investment ensures reduced waiting lists at North hospitals

Northland patients on hospital waiting lists are not being sent back to their GPs as they are elsewhere in New Zealand.
In several other regions patients are being culled from waiting lists for elective (non-urgent) surgery appointments and referred back to their doctors to meet government-imposed targets that patients be seen within six months.
But the Northland District Health Board says it is managing its lists without resorting to such measures.
Jane Holden, the DHB's manager of surgery, critical care and medicine, said the board had invested $9 million in the past three years on several measures to reduce waiting lists.
The key had been employing more staff, including 23 doctors, 45 nurses, three physicians, two orthopaedic surgeons, two general surgeons and nine administrative staff.
The boosted staff numbers have enabled the DHB to contract for and deliver 200 additional hip or knee joint replacements each year and 50 more cataract operations.
"The board made a decision that, given Northland's known poor health status, it was not acceptable to reduce waiting lists by sending patients back to their GPs," she said.
Apart from patients waiting for nerve conduction studies, the only Northland patients sent back to their GPs were those whose cases had been reviewed and where the patients were found to be improving.
She said that at the end of July no Northland patients had been waiting more than six months for a first specialist appointment in any department except ophthalmology, which should be on target by September.
In the past year, around 5000 more outpatients had been seen as part of the DHB's review of waiting lists.
Northland DHB was now well on its way to ensuring all patients meeting "priority criteria" saw a specialist within six months of their referral being accepted.
The chairman of Whangarei's Manaia Primary Health Organisation, Ron Abraham, confirmed the DHB was not currently involved in "active reviews" of patients - where patients are sent back to GPs.
But Dr Abraham would like patients seen in six weeks not six months.
"Six months can be an awfully long time," he said.
At the end of June 280 Northland patients, including 170 in ophthalmology and 99 vascular patients, had waited more than six months to see a specialist.
In May 2005 there were 1865 Northland patients waiting for appointments; by May 2006 that figure had dropped to 421.
At the end of June the number of Northland patients waiting longer than six months for elective surgery was 129, including 54 for ophthalmology, 22 for general surgery, 25 for urology.
In May 2005 there were 507 patients waiting for surgery; in May 2006 that number was 129.