As we reported here, HB Hospital did not rank well in a recent listing of ED wait times across NZ hospitals compiled by The Herald. Hawke’s Bay’s ED ranked 15th, with 64.3% of patients not seen within the stipulated target times, meaning 20 EDs had better performance.
Recent funding announcements by Health Minister Simeon Brown, which we reported here, should eventually have some impact on primary care – our GP practices – by boosting workforce numbers and extending the care able to be provided by those practices. This is important because so many patients present at EDs when they cannot access primary care.
That said, there are obviously capacity, workforce and processing issues within the EDs themselves. Another recent Brown announcement provides funding for a new 28-bed temporary inpatient unit at Hawke’s Bay Hospital by mid-2026, enabling the hospital to meet current capacity demands. This will help patient flow through the hospital, freeing up beds in the emergency department.
BayBuzz asked HB Hospital to describe steps it was taking to improve its ED situation directly.
David Warrington, Group Director of Operations, Hawke’s Bay, Health NZ provided this response:
“There is no doubt that acute services at Hawke’s Bay Hospital are under pressure due to increased demand and high inpatient occupancy rates.
“That is why a lot of work is underway to reduce emergency department wait times, including the development of a 28-bed temporary inpatient unit, which will enable us to better manage patient volumes and flow and freeing up beds in the ED as a result.
“The recently announced Radiology Refurbishment Project and Linear Accelerator (LINAC) machine will improve our scanning capacity and further reduce patient wait times.
“There are a range of specific initiatives underway to address ED wait times. These include:
- Ensuring escalation pathways are in place for complex patients.
- Increasing the use of transition lounges in hospitals
- Supporting senior nursing staff and nurse practitioners to lead the treatment and discharging of lower acuity patients.
- Making sure hospitals have a focus on increasing weekend discharges, which are historically lower than weekdays, and can lead to slower admissions from ED.”
Whenever BayBuzz reports on HB Hospital issues and care delivery, we receive a diversity of responses … most describing disastrous episodes, but others sincerely praiseworthy of the care received. We welcome those responses, but they are difficult to interpret.
That said, would you agree that your care deserves not to be left to the luck of the draw!
I seem to recall when I was young that there was always waiting times at ED usually due to an influx of morons who felt that violence was a good way to spend an evening. It’s got worse and not necessarily due to the aforementioned muppets although they still have their brains in neutral. It now seems that we have a marked lack of staff at ED’s and hospitals generally – in which case why are there so many overseas nurse and doctors looking for jobs with no joy – because their training overseas doesn’t meet our standard (although it seems to meet most other countries standards). Shouldn’t these people be welcomed with open arms and employed with an accelerated training update of their skills and then placed in our healthcare system asap. Also why aren’t we giving free training for doctors etc with a contract that has them employed after training in remote areas for a period of say 3 – 5 years as repayment for their free training/