Hospitals hit with rush of patients

Photo / APN

Hospital emergency departments have been swamped by a holiday season rush that is significantly worse than a year ago and has surpassed the usual winter surge of sickness for some.

A range of causes has been blamed, including drunkenness, steep charges at after-hours medical clinics, and food poisoning from badly stored Christmas leftovers.

Auckland City Hospital's adults' emergency department had its busiest day ever on Saturday, New Year's Day.

It saw 201 patients, a rise of nearly 14 per cent from January 1 last year.

The percentage increase was even greater at Waikato Hospital's emergency department, which saw 173 patients on Saturday.

At Thames Hospital, the emergency department received 83 New Year's Day patients, up from 75 last year.

Waitemata District Health Board's clinical director of emergency medicine, Dr Bhavani Peddinti, did not have New Year's Day figures available yesterday, but said emergency department attendances during the Christmas period were up by around 10 per cent at North Shore Hospital and by more than 25 per cent at Waitakere Hospital.

Dr Mike Shepherd, clinical director of the emergency department at the Starship children's hospital, said, "We saw around 100 kids on January 1, which is busy for the time of year, but is quite a long way from our busiest day. There's a much greater winter peak."

He attributed the large number of patients on New Year's Day mostly to the shortage of after-hours clinics, and the high fees at those which were open.

Some privately owned after-hours accident and medical centres charge more than $80 on a public holiday.

Dr Tim Parke, clinical director of Auckland City Hospital's adults' emergency department, said there had been unusually large numbers over the holiday period of patients suffering the effects of alcohol intoxication, assaults, falls and food poisoning.

The food poisoning was because of "people eating warm leftovers that have been left lying around for days".

These patients usually had diarrhoea and vomiting. Typically they were kept in hospital for six to 10 hours for intravenous rehydration.

A few patients had turned up because of the expense of going to an accident and medical centre.

He said that although New Year's Day had been very busy, the department had kept the length of stay at less than six hours, the Government health target, for 77 per cent of patients.

Waikato DHB spokeswoman Mary Anne Gill said Waikato Hospital had been particularly busy because of the holiday closure of many GP clinics, and motor-vehicle accidents and, at Thames, vehicle accidents and people leaping into holiday activities that their bodies were not ready for.

"They've just dealt with someone who dislocated their shoulder jumping off a cliff into the water."

THE INCREASE

New Year's Day patient numbers at Auckland City Hospital's adults' emergency department

2010: 177
2011: 201

Waikato Hospital's emergency department

2010: 151
2011: 173