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North Shore and Waitakere hospitals are to get 25 more beds to ease a winter gridlock that is forcing 30 patients a day to wait in emergency departments or corridors - but they won't be available until spring.
"During the past eight weeks, North Shore Hospital has been running at 100 per cent occupancy with Waitakere Hospital not far behind," said Dave Davies, chief executive of Waitemata District Health Board.
"When hospitals reach this level, they quickly end up in gridlock and the demand for beds and access to acute and elective services becomes untenable."
Mr Davies said the additional beds had been planned for months but the board could only afford them when it received its full allocation of Government funding on July 1.
Ministry of Health monitoring in March found Waitemata's emergency department to be the worst in the country in meeting the recommended guidelines times for Triage 1, or most urgent, care.
At 77 per cent of cases being attended to in the recommended time frame, it was behind Auckland and Counties Manukau health boards, which were both on 100 per cent.
The beds - 13 at North Shore and 12 at Waitakere - will become available over the next six to eight weeks.
More beds would probably be added next year, said Mr Davies. "Our population has grown so quickly we have phenomenal pressure on our beds," he added.
