Wellington Hospital bosses and non-clinical staff have been pitching in to help as staffing shortages hit.
Photo: RNZ / Dom Thomas
There are about 13 percent of staff off for Covid-related reasons at Wellington Regional Hospital, 16 percent at Kenepuru and 8 percent at Hutt Hospital.
Hutt Valley and Capital and Coast DHBs chief medical officer John Tait said it was a difficult time for staff and only about half of planned care was going ahead.
But the situation could have been worse, he said.
Cuts to operations had allowed theatre nurses to help in the wards, and anaesthetists to help in other areas, like the blood and cancer service where they could help by giving infusions and taking blood, he said.
"Some non-clinical staff who have clinical backgrounds have gone in to help. The ELT (executive leadership team) members have helped with distributing goods around the wards," he said.
He did not want to "jinx" the situation, but they had planned for a bigger impact, including cutting all planned care as had happened in Auckland.
Modelling suggested the region's hospitals might be about to peak, with Hutt slightly ahead of the rest, but that was not a done deal, he said.
"It's had to say on just one or two days figures so we're really not going to know probably until Monday whether we've reached a peak or not," he said.
The Wellington area was the most boosted in the country - 81 percent for those in the Capital and Coast DHB's rohe and 77 percent in the Hutt Valley.
That had no doubt lessened the impact on hospitals so far, and he was grateful for the hard work of community groups and GPs.
Two weeks ago, almost one in three people presenting to Hutt Hospital emergency department had Covid.
A DHB spokesperson said he could not provide the latest figures on Thursday.
There were indications the number had fallen.
Tait said anyone who needed to come to hospital should not be deterred because there were people available to care for them.