Photo: RNZ / Marika Khabazi
The Nurses Organisation says it is pleased to see movement from Te Whatu Ora Waitaha on safe staffing data.
According to tools used to determine safe staffing levels, Canterbury's neurosurgical, emergency and intensive care departments were short dozens of full-time roles.
Neurosurgical was short 13 full-time staff, emergency (ED) was missing 28 roles and intensive care (ICU) needed 34 more full-time staff members.
This figures were on top of existing staff vacancies in the departments.
Christchurch Hospital delegate Al Dietschin said Te Whatu Ora Waitaha was supposed to sign off on the positions straight away, so recruitment could begin.
But some missing roles had been left unsigned for up to six months, he said.
"Those calculations have been done, it's shown that there's a number of positions missing and they need to be filled, recruited to.
"It's difficult when you're very stressed and exhausted from being so short staffed to not take that home with you. It's impacting on people's lives, really," Dietschin said.
"And it's creating a very unsafe environment for staff and patients alike."
The issue came up in a monthly work place organising committee meeting at Christchurch Hospital about two weeks ago.
"That was a concern to us and we planned to highlight three areas where this was occurring [neurosurgical, ED and ICU]... with a rally," he said.
But this week, Te Whatu Ora Waitaha had started the recruitment process for positions in the neurosurgical department, so the action was halted.
Interim Canterbury Hospital and Specialist Services Lead, Lisa Blackler, said "Te Whatu Ora Waitaha Canterbury is committed to the Safer Staffing Accord signed by Union Partners, former DHBs and Ministry of Health in 2018, for sufficient nurses and midwives in our public hospitals to ensure both their own and their patients' safety".
Many inpatient wards had already been reviewed, resulting in an increase of 253 full-time equivalent staff in the 2022/2023 financial year, she said.
"We currently have further reviews going through the agreed approvals process.
"All recruitment systems are enabled to recruit to the tentative review figures... We are actively recruiting for nursing and midwifery roles across Waitaha and we are flexible in our approach if we have greater interest in areas that are not approved for uplift," Blackler said.
She also acknowledged "the hard work all of our teams are doing preparing these important reports, and in actively working to recruit into these vital roles as part of meeting the obligations under the Safe Staffing Accord".
Dietschin said the rally action would be reviewed again in one to two weeks.