Ophthalmology services see benefits

Excessive demand and concerning patient wait times for ophthalmology services at Southland Hospital are decreasing.

At a Southern District Health Board meeting yesterday, the board was told there had been significant improvements in the ophthalmology services sector in the past three years.

In November 2016, there 4684 patients in total in the department, and 30 per cent (1394) were overdue for appointments and surgeries.

Results from July 15 this year, showed an increase of patients to 4933, but only 10 per cent were overdue (500).

Surgical department service manager Judith Kissell said changes the department had implemented had improved on the excessive demand in 2015.

A move to a new building at the hospital at the end of 2015, along with changes to how they worked, resulted in significant improvement, Kissell said.

In 2015, the demand escalated for several reasons, including the introduction of Avastin injection for the treatment of macular degeneration, an aging population in the region, and increasing referrals from both optometrists and general practitioners.

Kissell, who has worked in the industry for about 40 years, said there were serious concerns during that period.

Staff were stretched across different areas of care, there was little capacity for training new and existing staff, ideas to improve efficiency were difficult to progress with no capacity, and there were cancellations of clinics or the use of locums to clear backlogs.

‘‘Staff were disappointed and couldn’t see a way forward,’’ Kissell said. ‘‘At the end of 2015 we looked at how we could expand . . . we just decided we needed to do something.’’

It cost about $100,000 to redevelop the department, ‘‘but it’s nothing on the gains we’re getting from it’’, Kissell said.

‘‘With the improvements that we made, it actually fostered a can-do attitude within the team because they could see that changes were being made, that patients which they were really concerned about, were now being treated and seen.

‘‘The staff then became really positive about the change and they wanted to make the changes happen. We’ve never really looked back since then – we’re continuing to improve our service and to look at how we’re doing things.’’

Now, no patients were overdue more than 1.5 times, which is the rate deemed acceptable, Kissell said.

Some of the changes used in Invercargill had been discussed to possibly implement at Dunedin Hospital.

Kissell said there were several models of care being looked into for the future.