Staff illness is adding pressure to the healthcare sector - already under the pump from Covid-19 and pre-pandemic staffing woes. With tomorrow being the official start of winter and seasonal illnesses expected to spread, experts say it will only get worse.
Canterbury District Health Board Senior Responsible Officer for Covid-19 Becky Hickmott said on average 200 staff had been away with the virus every day. Photo:
Many hospital emergency departments are pleading with people to only show up if they're seriously sick.
Canterbury District Health Board (DHB) had over 170 of its staff off sick with Covid-19 today.
Senior Responsible Officer for Covid-19 Becky Hickmott said on average 200 staff had been away with the virus every day.
"This is in addition to high levels of sick leave being taken by health staff right across the system for other illnesses and to care for dependants. With flu now circulating in Canterbury there's another serious virus out there affecting staff and the wider community."
Major surgery at Christchurch Hospital had to be postponed because of extremely high levels of seriously unwell people being admitted. The hospital was currently at 112 percent occupancy and its emergency department had seen 380 people in the last 24 hours.
Today's figures from the Ministry of Health showed across the country there were almost 400 people in hospital with Covid-19.
With the annual winter viruses kicking off, experts warned the bleak picture would be unlikely to improve in the short term.
Australasian College of Emergency Medicine spokesperson Dr John Bonning Photo: RNZ Insight/Karen Brown
Australasian College of Emergency Medicine spokesperson Dr John Bonning said some people were waiting more than 24 hours to be admitted to hospital.
"Last night, Waikato ED, that has 69 physical spaces, had over a hundred patients in it at one point. It's the ones that need admission that stay a long time in ED before they go to the ward," he said.
"We had to ramp ambulances as well, so we could not unload the ambulances because there were no physical spaces."
Dr Bonning said staff illness meant fewer people were having to do the same amount of work.
In Napier, the 24/7 medical centre City Medical was closed yesterday and on Sunday night, after staff illness worsened already critical staffing levels.
The region's hospital in Hastings also saw record numbers present at its emergency department yesterday.
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Hawke's Bay's chief medical officer Robin Whyman said although the DHB had modelling to show some services would reach capacity, it was hard to predict things in advance.
"It's difficult with the modelling though to know when those peaks are likely to come along and whether you're going to get all of the illnesses at the same time, so while we do have the modelling and we have certainly worked through those models, you do have to work with what's in front of you at a particular point in time.
"We are coping with the staff shortages, but we're undoubtedly affected by them."
Whyman asked for people with minor health symptoms to speak to their GP, pharmacist or Healthline.
"If they believe they do need medical assistance and need that in an urgent situation or an emergency situation then the Emergency Department remains available."
He also called on people to do all they could to avoid passing on or being exposed to these viruses, to help slow spread and ease the load on medical resources.
GPs in same boat
College of General Practitioners medical director Dr Bryan Betty said every winter there were overflowing emergency departments and code blacks in hospitals.
A code black is a last-resort declared when the hospital is at capacity, rationing the allocation of resources to preserve them for emergency patients. Overwhelming capacity is frequently dealt with by setting a higher bar for patients to be seen or treated, shifting the patient load to GPs.
Betty said GPs were seeing a similar surge in patient numbers and staff illness.
"But what we need to remember about that," Betty said, was, "general practice is often in exactly the same position - high patient demand, high patient load, and need to prioritise what is actually done in general practice."
File photo: College of General Practitioners medical director Dr Bryan Betty Photo: https://rnzcgp.org.nz
People with chronic health conditions were now coming back for care following two years of restrictions, which was adding to the demand.
And it was not just Covid-19 and the flu doing the rounds this year.
"RSV certainly we expect to see this winter. We also expect to see adenovirus, those cold-type viruses that we often see, and there are concerns for whooping cough and measles this year because of immunisation rates," he said.
"It is quite a complex picture in terms of the viruses that are there."
Nurses Organisation president Anne Daniels said although nurses were shifted to try cover gaps, most roles were specialised, and there was just no extra fat in the system.
While EDs sometimes closed beds because of capacity issues before the pandemic, it was now the norm, she said.
Staff sickness was also taking a toll on safe staffing levels.
"Sometimes you'll come to work and there'll be six out of 14 nurses who've been unable to come to work because of Covid or other issues. That's now becoming absolutely the norm, which is extremely worrying because we have to ask ourselves what are the things that we're not seeing."
Professionals across the sector are asking people to seek help before their illness worsens, and to contact their GP or Healthline in the first instance.