By ANGELA GREGORY
Hospitals are cracking down on mass visits by extended families, after complaints that visitors are sleeping in patients' beds and making nurses babysit their children.
Whangarei Area Hospital is considering severely restricting visiting rights because of the way it says its rules are abused.
The chief executive of Northland Health,
Ken Whelan, said last night that some visitors had taken naps in spare beds.
Other common complaints included visitors taking over day rooms, staying too late, and bringing smelly takeaways into wards.
Mr Whelan said he was struggling with the problem as there were cultural issues to deal with. On average, half the patients were Maori and they often had large extended families visiting.
The number of complaints was increasing, mainly from patients and other visitors concerned by the overcrowding of patient rooms.
At times, Mr Whelan said, up to a dozen visitors might gather around a patient in a four-bed room where three other patients were being cared for.
"Patients have even been given KFC [fried chicken] when they are meant to be nil by mouth," he said. "You would think common sense would prevail."
In the worst cases, visitors had verbally abused staff when asked to leave.
He also knew of one incident where an acutely ill woman was visited by a family member and four children.
"The visitor went off shopping and the nurses ended up having to babysit."
Mr Whelan said some nurses were nervous about dealing with people who did not respect the visiting hours of 11 am to 8 pm.
The hospital had already increased the number of security staff, and used more Maori wardens, which had helped in some cases.
Northland Health had also begun an extensive advertising campaign in February to educate the public on considerate visiting behaviour.
Mr Whelan said he would review the situation in a month and then consider restricting visitors to two a patient, and cutting visiting times to two sessions of just one hour.
South Auckland Health chief executive David Clarke said Middlemore Hospital had faced the same problems.
Security was boosted three years ago with electronically controlled doors to wards and 20 surveillance cameras.
Each patient was allowed only two visitors at a time, and at 8 pm security staff went around all the wards to move people on.
Mr Clarke said the system had worked well in the first 18 months but behaviour had since slipped.
South Auckland Health was about to launch an advertising campaign to remind the public of the rules governing hospital visiting.
