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Southern District Health Board chief executive officer Chris Fleming said patients were being treated by the Canterbury District Health Board while active recruiting continued. This had led to increasing resources going towards managing patients in ICU and transferring them to Christchurch for surgery. “If there s ever been a time of a collective South Island service, we are living in it,” Fleming said. Chief medical officer Dr Nigel Millar said neurosurgery was a major skill shortage in New Zealand. The country had not trained its own neurosurgeons in the past 10 years, he said. Medical Council requirements for foreign surgeons were strict, Millar said, and many needed to complete time in bigger centres before they would be allowed to work in a regional hospital, adding another obstacle to the recruitment process.
Robyn Edie/Stuff
Southern District Health Board Chief medical officer Dr Nigel Millar, pictured here at Southland Hospital, says staff have been raising practical suggestions – like running blood tests earlier in the day – to move patients through the hospital faster.
The Southland Hospital emergency department sees 86 per cent more patients than Dunedin, despite the former serving a population 46 per cent smaller. The hospital’s overstretched emergency department is one of the aspects a new Southern District Health Board taskforce is reviewing as it looks for ways to ease pressure amid bed blocks. In mid-December, the pressure from staff shortages and increased ED presentation reached a head when elective surgeries had to be deferred for at least two weeks under the advice of the clinical council.
Millar said burnout was a real challenge in health services, particularly in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. “It [..] is accentuated when people feel unable to meet the needs of patients. This is then compounded when the organisation does not appear to understand or respond to the pressure people are under,” he said. Noting the board s recent challenges meeting elective surgery needs, Millar said a new Patient Flow Taskforce would work with clinicians to understand the problems, and simplify processes to lighten workloads. “Being frustrated and unable to make a difference for patients is a common and disheartening problem that we could certainly improve through this programme,” he said.