Hospital on itinerary for passengers

DUNEDIN has many tourist attractions, but almost daily a cruise ship passenger misses out on the Royal Albatross Centre or Larnach Castle and spends their day in Dunedin Hospital’s emergency department instead.

This cruise ship season, between October and April next year, about 246,000 passengers were expected to visit Dunedin on 121 liners.

A small — but for them significant — number of passengers required medical help, either being taken from the ship to hospital or falling ill while out and about in the city.

‘‘We do get a steady number of people from the cruise ships who receive treatment for a range of conditions while they are here,’’ Southern District Health Board operations general manager Megan Boivin said.

‘‘However, these numbers are very small in the context of the approximately 3500 presentations we see in the emergency department each month.’’

The number of cruise ship passengers visiting Dunedin annually has grown in recent years; hence so has the number of patients who are either injured or fall ill.

In 2014, 69 cruise passengers ended up berthed in the emer gency department.

That fell to 63 the following two years.

However, in 2017 that leapt to 88 and in 2018, with figures unavailable for December, 74 people had already had their holiday cut short by mishap.

Each year the SDHB accumulates several million dollars in payments from non New Zealand residents who receive treatment in its hospitals.

In 201617 the SDHB collected $3.5 million in non resident payments. That dropped slightly to $3.4 million in 201718.

❛ . . . these numbers are very small in the context of the approximately 3500 presentations we see in

the emergency department each month