Man’s surgery stalled as hospital hits capacity

After a five-day stay in hospital and a 10-hour wait for surgery, a Nelson man is frustrated that his operation was postponed due to the hospital being at capacity.

Warren Solly visited the emergency department on November 11 after abdominal pain he had been experiencing on and off for the last eight months worsened.

A doctor told him he couldn’t leave the hospital until he had further testing. Solly spent the night in ED, then was transferred to a ward set up in the day stay unit.

Four days later, after CAT and MRI scans, Solly was told he would undergo surgery to remove the gallstones straight away. If it couldn’t be done in Nelson, he would be flown to Christchurch.

He was prepared for surgery last Thursday at 6am but learnt at 4.30pm the surgery would not go ahead because the operating theatre was busy. He said staff were unable to tell him when it would be re-scheduled, but he could be waiting for up to three months.

Solly was discharged later that day and had looked into having the surgery done privately but he would also face a fortnight wait.

He said the health system needed a ‘‘tidy up’’ and the nursing staff and resources were ‘‘fully stretched’’.

‘‘It’s a major issue, there were 12 of us out in a makeshift room in day stay and to me that’s ridiculous.’’

But the health board says its use of the day stay unit for overnight patients is part of its escalation plan when the hospital is at full capacity.

Solly couldn’t speak highly enough of the nursing staff, most of whom were working 12-hour days, with a few clocking up 16 hours.

‘‘They were absolutely brilliant but they are just overworked.

‘‘I would stand behind them in a strike again, I feel really sorry for them, they say it’s not about the pay but it is. You have got to give them a good pay rate to encourage more nurses, to get more nurses and work better hours.’’

Nelson Marlborough Health general manager of clinical services Lexie O’Shea said Nelson Hospital had experienced an increase in urgent admissions for people needing treatment in most areas, including medical, surgical and paediatrics.

The hospital was at full capacity last week, but currently had the capacity to admit patients.

O’Shea said capacity was managed on a daily basis, by using the day-stay admission unit for overnight needs, transferring staff from Wairau to Nelson Hospital, calling in casual staff, asking part-time staff to work additional shifts and transferring some patients to Wairau Hospital for procedures. Elective surgeries were sometimes postponed to prioritise urgent cases.

After negotiations with the union, Nelson Marlborough Health will employ 21 additional fulltime nursing and healthcare assistant staff by January 2019, O’Shea said.

Nelson GP spokesman Graham Loveridge said general practices had been sent a letter by the district health board last week asking doctors to be mindful of the current pressure on Nelson Hospital.

‘‘It’s a good idea they give general practice a heads up but sometimes patients just need to be in hospital, they have complex conditions that need more investigation than we can manage in general practice.’’

He said there were several components to the problem, the number of beds available in hospital along with an ageing population meant people had more complex needs and took longer to recover.

He could recall the hospital giving notice it was at capacity ‘‘once or twice’’ before, but said it wasn’t a common occurrence.

Warren Solly