Piers Voller/Stuff
Wairarapa Hospital’s emergency department has reached a historically low workforce, with numbers as low as 50% of the bare minimum. (File photo)
Wairarapa’s emergency department has reached an all-time low, with numbers as low as 50% from the bare minimum.
Earlier, in the day shift, some nurses were working their tenth day in a row and on Sunday evening there were only two members of staff on deck.
Wairarapa ED nurse Lucy McLaren worried about her colleagues and their patients.
“The team is terrified that they will make a mistake and hurt someone, or miss an important part of someone’s care and cause harm,” she said.
The lower staff limit was calculated for emergency departments across the country after the 24-hour strike in 2018, and is the number capable of performing “life-saving services” – on Sunday, Wairarapa’s ED had half the number that was needed, even during a strike.
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Emergency departments (EDs) across the country offered double or even triple time to nurses picking up extra shifts, while those employed were given no incentive to enter, despite working under the same difficult conditions.
Those at neighboring Hutt Valley Hospital were paid extra for unscheduled services, but the Wairarapa DHB refused to implement a similar scheme as they awaited a national response.
McLaren said nurses were “lost for words” because they were disadvantaged because of the region in which they worked.
The shortages had been “brewing for years, and repeated governments have underfunded the health system,” McLaren said. “If you add another pandemic to that…”
Whenever the department was understaffed, McLaren crossed her fingers that they would be lucky and have a quiet night. Luck, however, was a strategy she was tired of relying on.
The chair of the New Zealand Nurses Organization, Anne Daniels, said the chronic understaffing of wards was “extremely dangerous”.
In addition to putting enormous pressure on staff, patient wait times would be much longer than national triage standards allow.
“We can no longer plug the gaps, we don’t have the resources,” Daniels said. “It’s not for lack of willingness to try.”
This happened not only in emergency rooms, but also in elderly care and primary care. With the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff understaffed, the best way the public could help was prevention.
“Masks and hand washing should be applied everywhere,” Daniels said. “It will reduce the flu, reduce Covid risk and the pressure on hospitals and primary care.”
Wairarapa DHB could not be reached for comment.