‘Code red’ events likely to increase

Staff shortages and the rising number of ill patients has led to an increased activation of ‘‘code red’’ in hospitals, a health union boss says.

‘‘Code red’’ can be activated when hospitals have full beds and elective surgeries have to be cancelled in order to treat people with urgent needs.

On Wednesday, the Wairarapa District Health Board (DHB) declared a ‘‘code red’’ at its hospital in Masterton for the second time this month.

Executive director of Association of Salaried Medical Specialists, Ian Powell, said ‘‘code red’’ declarations by hospitals were more prevalent than 10 years ago.

He also anticipated more in the future.

Capital & Coast District Health Board has about 400 adult in-patient beds and Wellington Regional Hospital operates at 95 per cent occupancy or higher.

Quality improvement and patient safety general manager Sandy Blake said occupancy could fluctuate and many hospital admissions were unplanned.

When it was high, ‘‘flexi’’ beds could be used to open up extra clinical areas, Blake said.

In the year to August, 19 elective procedures were deferred due to high occupancy.

A Hutt Valley District Health Board spokesman said hospital occupancy could reach 95 per cent or above depending on the admission of patients.

‘‘High occupancy can last anywhere between a couple of hours to more than a day, depending on the cause,’’ the spokesman said.

Extra clinical areas and calling in more staff took place during high occupancy times.

‘‘We make more beds available if more people need hospital admission. Our policies and procedures enable us to be flexible when occupancy is high.’’

‘‘Code red’’ was used in a large emergency situation such as a large-scale epidemic. Thankfully, this hasn’t happened.’’

Powell said DHBs needed to make ‘‘more serious efforts’’ when it came to easing the problem by assessing whether every clinical service had a ‘‘good number of specialists’’.

More effort was needed to improve job satisfaction as the industry was ‘‘vulnerable on [staff] retention’’. Overall, DHBs were doing ‘‘pretty well nothing’’ but pressures did force more recruiting, he said.

The Ministry of Health had set aside $2.45 billion in its first two budgets for investment in hospitals.