Patient spike leaves hospital overloaded
‘‘Month on month and year on year, we are getting more numbers of people coming to the emergency department.’’ Emergency department clinical nurse director Mary-Anne Spence
It’s the tail-end of summer, but the Waikato Hospital is as full as it is during a bad flu-season and it’s ringing alarm bells of what the winter ahead might hold.
Hospital beds are full and for more than a week the emergency department (ED) has been bombarded.
But there’s no clear reason for the spike, emergency department clinical nurse director Mary-Anne Spence said. And relentlessly growing numbers are sparking concern around the strain colder months could bring.
On February 12 ED had the second busiest day ever, with 296 patients presenting – one less than ED’s busiest day in July last year.
Lack of rooms meant some patients were put in hospital corridors. Others waited overnight to be seen. ‘‘We have to make arrangements to accommodate people whenever we can and, sometimes, it does mean a corridor,’’ Spence said. ‘‘It’s not routine, but at times with the surge — certainly on Monday with the surge – we did have to put people in corridors and it did take longer to unload ambulances.’’
Last January, an average of 210 people went through the ED each day.
This year, the January average spiked to 243.
‘‘[The numbers] continue to grow. Month on month and year on year, we are getting more numbers of people coming to the emergency department. There’s a lot of theories about why that is. But we don’t have the magic answers as to why those numbers keep growing.
‘‘We are trying to think creatively around the ways [the hospital] can manage.’’
The spike doesn’t appear to be caused by people showing up with non-urgent problems.
‘‘The numbers are increasing, but the percentage of those that we admit to hospital are about the same.’’
And there hasn’t been a standout virus bringing in the masses, Spence said.
But ED was swamped Monday and Tuesday this week, too, Spence said.
Staff have already increased and a closed ward is set to reopen on Monday.
Patient numbers peaked between 10pm and midnight, possibly due to people thinking wait times won’t be as bad at night, Spence said.
‘‘If you can choose when you come to the emergency department, it’s possibly not an emergency.’’
Showing up in an ambulance won’t necessarily mean you wait less, either.
‘‘Whether you walked or bussed, or came in the car or came by ambulance, our job is to say, how urgently do you need to be seen? And it doesn’t matter how you came.’’
It’s not the only strain the DHB is facing.
A shortage in lead maternity carers (LMCs) in Coromandel has left pregnant women struggling to find a midwife.
In the last three years, selfemployed midwives in the Coromandel have dropped from 11 to four.
While the shortage of LMCs is a nationwide problem, it’s especially bad in remote areas, Waikato DHB clinical midwife director Jo Clarke said.
‘‘We are very concerned about the situation in the Coromandel,’’ Clarke said.
‘‘We know already of five women in Thames who have made contact with our birthing unit as they are unable to find a local midwife.’’
Women struggling to find a midwife should contact the birthing unit at Thames Hospital.
Michelle Lemberg, a midwife practising in Thames, said the workload was stressful for all midwives, but has hit crisis mode for those in rural areas.
‘‘We don’t have set work hours, we don’t get to go home and just stop,’’ Lemberg said. ‘‘We take our work home with us.’’
More and more midwives are leaving rural areas – including Lemberg who will take a break after delivering a last baby in June.
‘‘The midwife crisis has been impending for a while, it’s just been tucked under the rug like it’s going to get better. It’s just hit crisis mode now. But it’s only going to get worse.
‘‘People aren’t just going to stop having babies.
‘‘At the moment, the system is failing our clients.’’