Oamaru Hospital's chief executive Keith Marshall says New Zealand is not training enough doctors to help address ongoing staff shortages. Photo: RNZ / Dan Cook
The head of Oamaru Hospital says it is unbelievable it cannot find a doctor to attend its emergency department for the third time in six weeks.
The hospital's ED is closing at night this weekend because of the nationwide doctor shortage.
Chief executive Keith Marshall said the hospital covered nearly 40,000 people in Oamaru and nearby regions.
"There is an ED in Oamaru for a reason, and the reason is that we see around about 9000 people per year through our ED," he said.
"It's not a general practice after-hours care centre, it's an emergency department - and so closing an emergency department's never a good thing."
The closure of the hospital's ED over two nights this weekend is the third in six weeks.
Marshall said the doctor shortage affecting the area's ED had been over a decade in the making.
The hospital had been in discussion with Te Whatu Ora for weeks, but the agency was unable to find a doctor to cover the department, he said.
Covid-19 had closed all the borders world-wide, he said, and when they reopened, "doctors got moving".
"Salaries and demand have increased out-of-sight and a number of doctors have left and gone elsewhere so that's exacerbated the problem, but at the fundamental core of the doctor shortage is we're just not training enough doctors."
The hospital said local GPs and residential care facilities had been advised and some ward patients potentially moved to Dunedin Hospital.
Marshall said a trip to the emergency departments at Timaru or Dunedin hospitals could take up to an hour and a half.
Waitaki Health Services (WHS) runs health services at the hospital and is owned by Waitaki District Council, but has a funding contract with Te Whatu Ora, which was given a boost earlier this year.
WHS said anyone in need of emergency care during overnight should call the on-call GP in the first instance, or if it was really serious, then an ambulance should be called.
"While we have tried to minimise the impact and length of closure as best as we are able in the circumstances, we are still left with no option but to close in order to ensure the clinical safety of our patients.
"This was, and is, a situation that none of us want to find ourselves in. Equally, with the current nationwide Dr [doctor] shortages, Te Whatu Ora tell us there is nothing they can do."
St John ambulance had also been alerted to the situation.