KEY POINTS:
A shortage of hospital beds is killing as many as the national road toll - about 400 a year - say emergency doctors.
They are calling for a 15 per cent increase in the number of beds after research that indicates hundreds die every year.
Their Australasian college
is holding a conference in Melbourne on Friday to combat the crisis of overcrowding in hospital emergency departments, caused mainly by having too few inpatient beds.
An international review of studies on EDs, done for the college, finds overcrowding and blocked access increases the risk of death 10 days later by 34 per cent.
The review by the University of New South Wales calculates the excess death toll in Australia is similar to the annual road toll of around 1500.
Dr Tim Parke, clinical director of Auckland City Hospital's adults' emergency department, said yesterday that the number of deaths in New Zealand probably matched its road toll too.
Typically more than 400 people die on New Zealand roads each year.
A spokeswoman for Health Minister David Cunliffe said last night that his ministry would look into the college's concerns and advise him.
" ... this Government has undertaken the largest hospital building [including seven new hospitals] campaign in the country's history and made primary healthcare more accessible."
The ideal occupancy of inpatient wards is 85 per cent but many New Zealand hospitals run at more than 90 per cent, especially in winter. Waikato Hospital reached 109 per cent last Monday. The college says the core problem is lack of beds and a 15 per cent increase is needed in Australia and New Zealand.
In the Auckland region, a 15 per cent increase would add 315 beds to the present stock of around 2100.
New Zealand's public hospital beds have declined from 2.48 per 1000 people in 1988 to 1.56 in 2006 - largely through reduced lengths of stay and increased efficiencies like day surgery.
When Auckland City Hospital opened in 2003, amalgamating four hospitals, doctors criticised the 7 per cent reduction in beds. At around 1000 , it is still slightly below the 1062 before amalgamation.
The Waitemata District Health Board will have added 68 beds by the end of this month and plans 300 more by 2013.
Overcrowded emergency departments lead to worse outcomes because of factors like delays in starting antibiotics for pneumonia, delayed heart-attack care and patients simply being overlooked because they are on a trolley in a corridor. Auckland City Hospital no longer permits patients to wait in ED corridors because of this risk.