A cardiologist at Wellington Hospital fears patients on waiting lists could die as operations are delayed.
The Cardiac Society warns that patients who needed urgent procedures have now had to wait much longer, as winter sickness puts hospitals under pressure.
Some acute heart patients wait weeks in the hospital for surgery, too sick to go home, but can’t get an operation site.
dr. Scott Harding, who is also a spokesperson for the Cardiac Society, was concerned about patients who needed urgent procedures but now have to wait longer.
“This isn’t just a Wellington problem. It’s a national problem right now. And again, it’s hard to see their problem improving in the near future without a specific plan to address it.”
He warned that there could be serious consequences for patients who have to wait.
“What we want to do is try to deal with this or have a mechanism to deal with it before, you know, people start having side effects on the waiting list,”
“It [an adverse event] it could be a heart attack, it could be death, it could be developing heart failure,” said Dr. Harding.
The Cancer Society also heard that urgent procedures were being canceled, mostly in regional hospitals.
Lucy Elwood, CEO of the Cancer Society said: “There are those who will be there the day the nurses, or the anesthesiologist, or the surgeon are in isolation and there’s really no way for the hospital to do that operation then. manning”.
“That can be stressful for patients, especially if they’ve traveled for that surgery, they’ll have to travel back home and wait for another appointment,” Elwood said.
For any operation that is time-critical, for care that is classified as non-urgent.
Brain Tumor Support NZ said hundreds experienced delays in accessing surgery and scans, and some were not even able to make appointments.
“People don’t actually get answers from their doctors and can’t even contact the neurosurgeon,” said chairman Chris Tse.
MRI delays were the worst Tse had ever seen.
“We have a lot of patients who are actively monitored and they are planned to have MRI scans on a regular basis and if they are delayed there is a risk that their treatment will be delayed,” Tse said.
So is Caitlin, which is not her real name. The 32-year-old had a brain tumor removed last year, but it showed signs of coming back.
“I’ve had pretty severe migraines — about four a week — and I’ve been throwing up,” she said.
However, Caitlin’s MRI last month was canceled and it could be four months or more before she can get one.
“You live with quite a bit of anxiety and you try to keep busy… It seems unfair,” she said.
Te Whatu Ora, the new health authority, said it was monitoring the impact of the pressure on planned care and working to minimize the impact on cardiac surgery.
It said decisions to delay cardiac surgery were made with clinical teams and patient safety was carefully considered.
Te Whatu Ora developed a plan to improve access to scheduled healthcare services and reduce waiting lists, once the burden of Covid-19 on the health system begins to ease.