Overload may put babies at risk
Over-run units caring for New Zealand’s sickest newborns urgently need more resources to make them safer, a review has found.
Neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) staff around the country report feeling overworked dealing with the high occupancy rates, which have led health boards to add extra cots or babies to be transferred out-of-region to receive care.
The long-awaited national review of neonatal care, the first since 2008, was commissioned by the Ministry of Health and led by the New Zealand Newborn Clinical Network.
Stuff revealed last year the ministry received the draft in March 2019. Delays releasing it prompted criticism from the likes of National’s health spokesman, Michael Woodhouse, who said not acting on its recommendations could put babies’ lives at risk.
The ministry quietly uploaded the review on to its website yesterday – a day after the Government announced billions of dollars of spending on infrastructure projects, including funds to upgrade neonatal care facilities at Counties Manukau, Hutt Valley and Capital & Coast district health boards.
All NICU levels consistently operated above capacity between 2012 to 2017, the review found, and in 2017, occupancy exceeded 85 per cent (the level considered safe) for 98 per cent of days in level 3 units, which provide the highest level of care to extremely premature and sick babies.
To manage demand, district health boards were putting in additional cots above their resourced numbers. If there was no space, babies were transferred to other areas. About a quarter of babies requiring level 3 care were cared for in units away from where they lived.
Some staff surveyed for the review described overwhelming workloads where ‘‘one admission can tip us over’’ and expressed concern about the level of care that they were able to provide.
‘‘There are often occasions where all nurses will have extremely unsafe workloads and admissions continue to come in,’’ said one registered nurse.
Sustained high occupancy levels placed pressure on staff, the review found, and a high proportion of the workforce considered they were overworked.
Health Minister David Clark said $16 million had been put towards the neonatal upgrades.
Neonatal intensive care had suffered from underfunding under the previous Government, he claimed, and the report was an ‘‘important piece of work’’ for identifying how to improve care ‘‘for our most vulnerable and precious patients’’.