Airdropped surgeons to carry on in Wellington till 2025
An end is finally in sight for the “pretty abysmal” time in Wellington’s child surgery service, where more than $1.8 million has been spent airdropping specialists from Christchurch and Waikato to keep it afloat.
A rotation of nine paediatric surgeons from Christchurch and Waikato have been flying in and out of the capital since April 2022, when staffing problems left the unit critically short.
It meant Wellington lost its ability to host trainee surgeons, and the $116m children’s health service, Te Wao Nui, opened with just one permanent children’s surgeon on staff, when there should be four full-timers.
As of last week, four full-time surgeons are in place, but not for long with the fly-in, fly-out arrangement now to continue until at least mid-2025.
New Zealand-trained paediatric surgeon Prabal Mishra started with the service a year ago, South African surgeon Dirk von Delft arrived in August, while a fourth surgeon, from the UK, started last week bringing the unit up to full strength.
But Mishra will head overseas In July for a 12-month fellowship in Birmingham, specialising in liver surgeries.
Head of the service, Spencer Beasley, who lives in Christchurch, said another staff member was also due long service leave and another had overseas commitments too.
“We are close to fully staffed, but won't be fully staffed until the end of next year,” Beasley said.
Recruitment would continue to cover the new gaps.
Despite this, Beasley was confident the service was bouncing back from what he described as “a pretty abysmal” time. “We were doing six out of seven nights on call,” he said.
Part of that turnaround involved flipping the model of care, Beasley said. Rather than bringing entire families from more remote regions to Wellington, the surgeons themselves travel to Palmerston North, Whanganui and Hawke’s Bay and use local facilities.
This has “significantly reduced” waiting lists.
“[These] children are now getting their surgery locally ... it's much better for the families, it’s much cheaper overall ... It’s less likely to be cancelled because you don’t have that acute pressure,” Beasley said.
At the moment, a child needing a non-urgent surgery like a hernia would be waiting two to three months, he said.
While the timing of Mishra’s fellowship was “very inconvenient, we actually want him to have these skills in the longer term”, Beasley said.
The Medical Council would inspect the unit for possible training reaccreditation in May, but realistically it would not have a surgical trainee until at least 2026, Beasley said.
What it has cost
Health New Zealand Te Whatu Ora says the cost of the arrangement has averaged $87,000 each month, or $1.82 million over the 21 months to December 2023.
The total includes more than $195,000 in travel, accommodation and meal allowances over the course of the arrangement. The balance is specialist and locum fees.
The costs have fallen within its paediatric surgery budget, said Jamie Duncan, hospital and specialist services group director for Capital, Coast & Hutt Valley.