Mystery rush on hospital

By MARTIN JOHNSTON

North Shore Hospital has been overwhelmed with patients who are even sicker than usual.

It has been unable to send them to other hospitals in the region because the "bypass" agreement between emergency departments broke down last year.

Some patients at North Shore's Emergency Care Centre have been forced to wait more than 18 hours on trolleys in corridors before a bed in a ward becomes available.

On Monday night, 30 acutely ill patients in the centre were waiting to be admitted to a ward. Eight were put in a day-surgery ward, opened overnight to relieve the pressure.

By yesterday morning, 22 patients were still waiting for a bed. By mid-afternoon, the figure was down to 13.

"We're wondering what's hit us," said the hospital's general manager, Derek Wright.

"There's nothing out in the community to account for these numbers, such as a flu epidemic."

He advised people to see a GP as soon as they felt unwell rather than wait until they were so sick that they needed to go to hospital.

The emergency centre's manager, Jay Behrouz-Pirnia, said it saw about 120 patients a day on average and Monday was around that figure.

The difference was that on average they were much sicker than usual.

The 53-bed, $8 million centre opened almost one year ago.

Mr Behrouz-Pirnia said that it had been as busy as it was this week on a number of occasions.

The bypass system for North Shore, Auckland and Middlemore Hospitals, which had been in place for three years, started collapsing in July last year when Middlemore pulled out.

Under the system, an overcrowded emergency department could gain a one-hour respite by diverting ambulances to the others.

Middlemore's emergency department clinical director, Dr Bhavani Peddinti, said at the time that it was pointless to divert patients to another hospital that was already overflowing.