Start Date For 24-7 Emergency Services Deferred

MEDIA RELEASE

24 March 2011

Start Date For 24-7 Emergency Services For Adults At Waitakere Hospital Deferred

Sudden developments with new medical staff have forced Waitemata DHB to postpone the start date for 24-7 emergency services for adults at Waitakere Hospital.

Unforeseen events recently affecting new staff members for Waitakere Hospital's emergency department - including unexpected immigration visa delays and injury - have forced the board to defer the service's commencement until mid-June.

"As a board, we are incredibly disappointed and frustrated that we are unable to start the service as planned on March 28, but on advice of our chief medical officer, we decided that it would be imprudent to proceed without sufficient medical staff," says Waitemata DHB chairman Dr Lester Levy.

"Following the expansion of Waitakere's emergency department opening hours and the introduction of 24-7 emergency services for children last year, the service for adults would have completed the delivery on our commitment to have a 24 hour a day, 7 day a week emergency service for people in west Auckland.

"We will still realise this commitment in June, but simply opening the service now without adequate medical staffing could be doing more harm than good."

Dr Levy says while 24-7 adult emergency services at Waitakere has always been a key priority for the DHB - with a substantial financial commitment from the board to ensuring this project was delivered on time - it was always going to be a difficult task ensuring that the emergency department had enough staff, in light of the global shortage of emergency medicine specialists.

"Despite this, we were expecting that we would have enough numbers to safely start the service - until we were told in recent days of developments with several doctors who were due to start with us."

Chief medical officer Dr Andrew Brant says the DHB has done everything it could to start the service for adults in late March - including assessing the possibility of using staff from other DHBs to help fill gaps in the roster.

"The other DHBs have offered what support they were able to provide, but in the end, we decided we simply did not have the numbers to make the service as safe as we would have liked it to be."

Mr Brant says while the developments affecting some staff members are a temporary setback, active recruitment over the last six months means there will be seven doctors joining Waitemata DHB's emergency departments between April and May - putting it in better stead for the expectation of provision of 24-7 services for adults in June.

"Despite this development, it's important to remember that our commitment to Waitakere Hospital is so much more than plugging a late night-early morning gap in the provision of emergency services for adults.

"Over the past year, we've added significantly to services at the hospital, including the introduction of 24-7 emergency services for paediatric patients, the delivery of a marked increase in elective surgeries such as hip replacements, and the further expansion and modernisation of our wards and clinical facilities."

ENDS

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