Doctor shortages sees patients waiting 24 hours in corridors at Taranaki Base Hospital
The New Zealand Resident Doctors’ Association (NZRDA) is deeply concerned about Resident Doctor staffing at Taranaki Base Hospital with 4 adult medical registrar positions and 4 psychiatry registrar positions currently vacant.
Taranaki Base Hospital’s adult medical services are managed outside of ordinary hours (including weekends and evenings) by a small group of 14 medical registrars. Currently 4 positions are vacant and have been vacant for six months leaving the remaining 10 registrars feeling burnt out and exhausted.
As a result over the last two weeks 20 shifts ordinarily filled by these doctors training to become adult medicine physicians have been unfilled, plus these doctors have not been provided the medical education and training they require for the last five weeks.
“For patients, the lack of registrars on duty means waiting up to 24 hours on stretchers in the corridors of Taranaki Hospital’s emergency department to be seen by a doctor. Patients on surgical wards are waiting two to three days for the medical review. These patients may have suffered heart attacks, strokes or other life-threatening emergencies, yet the lack of staff means they cannot be seen in a timely manner,” said Dr Deborah Powell, national secretary of the New Zealand Resident Doctors’ Association.
“As well, Taranaki Base Hospital currently has only 2 of the 6 psychiatry registrar positions filled, and on some days in the last week no psychiatry registrars were on duty in the Taranaki district. This has left two new graduate doctors feeling so unsupported and unsafe when responding to patient emergencies for mental health patients they have flagged their concerns formally to management,” continued Dr Powell.
“Our union’s attempts to engage the local District to take urgent steps to remedy the medical staffing crisis with a solution which would recruit and retain sufficient medical staff to the region have gone nowhere.”
“It should concern anyone living in Taranaki to hear that while our members are putting up with unsafe staffing in our hospitals, burnout and exhaustion, Te Whatu Ora management may have been considering how to cut back doctor numbers further,” concluded Dr Powell.