Bedlock at Southland Hospital
Patients with winter ills have been filling up the beds at Southland Hospital, resulting in some people being sent elsewhere for surgery.
Hospital hierarchy have copped criticism for the bedlock, with an affected patient questioning why surgeries had been booked when staff knew there was limited bed space.
He was booked in for surgery at Southland Hospital last Tuesday but was told on the surgery date that his procedure would instead be done at Southern Cross Hospital, he said.
Nurses he had spoken to at the hospital ‘‘kept going on about bedlock’’, he said.
‘‘The nurses kept saying, ‘there’s not enough beds, there’s not enough beds.’’
‘‘Then [I was told] I couldn’t have the surgery at Southern Cross because the surgeon had gone to Auckland.’’
He was re-booked for surgery at Southland Hospital for Friday this week, but was contacted yesterday and asked if it could be put off until next Wednesday, with a bed shortage again being cited.
He was unimpressed and insisted the surgery take place as planned.
‘‘They [know they] haven’t got a big enough hospital but they still schedule all these people in.’’
Another patient, who was pregnant, said her waters broke on August 10 and she was due to go to Southland Hospital for the birth.
But she was told the maternity unit was full and she was sent to Dunedin where she had a baby boy.
Southern District Health Board nursing and midwifery executive director Leanne Samuel said ‘‘some’’ patients had been sent to Southern Cross hospital for their planned surgeries to ensure beds were available at Southland Hospital for acute patients.
There had been high demand for clini- cal care at Southland Hospital because of a late winter surge of admissions, resulting in high occupancy over the past week, she said.
Additional resources had been put in place to support staff, patients and their families.
Staff were working hard to ensure patients were seen in the emergency department and other departments as soon as possible, she said.
‘‘We’ve ensured all patients who have needed a bed have had a bed, but due to the number of patients we have been seeing, a small number of these beds have been based for periods of time in ED, before they were transferred to wards,’’ she said.
‘‘We have kept all patients who need acute beds at Southland Hospital.’’
Southern District Health Board medical officer of health Dr Keith Reid said people tended to get a lot of chest infections at this time of year but flu numbers were down in the SDHB area, covering Southland and Otago.
‘‘We normally see about 400 cases a week of flu at this time of year across the district and we are seeing about 20.’’