“Emergency department staffing issues were very high on the agenda.”
Dalton said having only five of a quota of eight specialists in the Emergency Department was a “very significant shortage”.
“It’s not far off a 50% shortage, so it’s a very significant shortage of senior staff.
“Our other concern is that the main way that the hospital seems to be addressing this problem is to try and get locums [temporary staff] to fill empty spots.”
Dalton said she understood 75 shifts were being covered by locum senior medical officers/specialists over the Christmas and New Year period.
There are two vacant FTE roles for orthopaedic surgeons of a budgeted five FTEs.
There is one vacant FTE role for ENT surgeons (otolaryngologists) with a budgeted FTE of two jobs, a 50% shortage in the department.
For anaesthetists, there is a 0.5 vacant FTE role with a budgeted FTE of 9.2.
Alongside releasing the information, Health NZ provided a statement saying it acknowledged the growing pressure on health professionals and the current shortages in the health workforce.
“I assure you that Health NZ is absolutely committed to putting more resources into the front line and addressing areas of clinical shortage.
“We are realigning budgets to prioritise ongoing funding for frontline services.”
Dalton said it looked as if staffing at the hospital had gradually declined over several years, but it was getting to the point where the service was “very fragile”.
“If they lost one more doctor, it would become very difficult to retrieve it.”
The impact on patients of current staffing levels would be longer wait times, Dalton said.
“The major issue is that you will be seen by staff that are tired and who are pretty busy and that’s not ideal.
“We have seen in a number of services that when the vacancy levels become so severe, it becomes almost untenable for the remaining staff to continue to cope.
“So that’s what we’re really worried about at Whanganui Hospital at the moment.”
Whanganui Hospital did not seem to be well-supported to tackle shortages across emergency medicine and general medicine.
There was also the issue of not having enough junior doctors, and there being a higher number of less experienced junior doctors, she said.
“What you’re really looking for with your junior doctor workforce is a good skill mix so that they’re not all very early in their career.
“That’s a problem in that hospital as well because the RMOs they do have tend to be very thinly stretched and less experienced.”
The silver lining was that for smaller hospitals it could be relatively quick to turn around staffing shortages if it was prioritised.
“Potentially they’re easily fixed,” Dalton said.
She hoped Health NZ would look into providing stronger recruitment packages and higher remuneration to attract hospital staff to Whanganui.
Eva de Jong is a reporter for the Whanganui Chronicle covering health stories and general news. She began as a reporter in 2023.
