Patients are waiting in soiled beds at North Shore Hospital’s emergency department and nurses say conditions are so bad it feels feral.<\/p>\n
One hundred and twenty nurses have written to Health NZ chief executive Dale Bramley, saying the ED is in its own state of emergency.<\/p>\n
Health NZ had failed to plan properly for winter and had not hired the nurses it had agreed to, the letter said.<\/p>\n
North Shore ED charge nurse Jean Classey told RNZ the ED had been so busy it felt “feral”, with people unable to even fit in the waiting rooms.<\/p>\n
It was hard seeing people crammed into corridors, and brightly lit public spaces with no privacy.<\/p>\n
Sometimes incontinent people were waiting in wet beds until nurses could find a space to change them, she said<\/p>\n
“It’s an absolute nightmare. It feels like we’re at war,” she said.<\/p>\n
Classey, like all the nurses in this story, is a NZ Nurses Organisation delegate which gives them some protection for speaking out.<\/p>\n
The vast majority of nurses in the department signed the letter to Bramley.<\/p>\n
Health NZ said it had a winter plan running that was helping, but the emergency departments at North Shore and Waitakere Hospitals were having their busiest ever winter.<\/p>\n
Between them, there had been nearly 14,000 patients through the doors in July, it said.<\/p>\n
But the nurses’ letter said the crisis was “entirely predictable.”<\/p>\n
“Health New Zealand failed to adequately plan for winter demand, placing patients and staff at unnecessary risk,” it said.<\/p>\n
Some of the problems outlined included:<\/p>\n
patients waiting 90 minutes to be triagedheart scans that should be done immediately, taking hourspatients waiting more than 50 hours in the ED for a bed in the hospitalpatients missing essential medicationspatients left in soiled beds in overcrowded corridorsthe department at 300 percent capacity at times.<\/p>\n
Health NZ had agreed to hire 25 nurses for the department but only nine had come, the nurses said.<\/p>\n
Line of grey heads<\/p>\n
Nurses spoken to be RNZ said it was often impossible for people to get privacy in the ED when they were feeling at their worst.<\/p>\n
Sharon Franklin-Smith said she sometimes looked down to see a line of grey heads – people in their 80s or 90s – being cared for in the corridor.<\/p>\n
That meant a lack of dignity and respect.<\/p>\n
“That’s someone’s mother, grandmother and it breaks my heart, it absolutely breaks my heart.” she said.<\/p>\n
Jean Moor has been a nurse for 35 years and said it was the worst she had seen it.<\/p>\n
Nurses were juggling caring for their own patients, keeping an eye on those waiting, and trying to organise assessments and treatments.<\/p>\n
“You’re running, you’re constantly working really hard, your brain is in overdrive,” she said.<\/p>\n
Like many of the nurses she often got home hoping no one had died because they had not got the care they needed.<\/p>\n
Health NZ starts some hiring<\/p>\n
The day after it received the letter, Health NZ announced Friday it had started recruitment for 50 new nurses for North Shore and Waitakere Hospitals – both are operated by Health NZ’s Waitemat\u0101 district.<\/p>\n
Nine would be for the North Shore emergency department.<\/p>\n
Health NZ group director of operations Brad Healey said in a statement that Health NZ would also hire 10 nurses and 14 health care assistants that would be in a central team to be dispatched where needed in the hospitals.<\/p>\n
“The additional staff in the centralised nursing team gives us greater flexibility to respond to surges in demand and also cover unplanned leave,” he said.<\/p>\n
The organisation’s winter plan had helped care for more patients in the community and moved people quickly through the hospitals to free up space – but the demand this season had been much higher than previous years, he said.<\/p>\n
Healey said the hospitals has “amazing staff” and he hoped the recruitment would ease the load.<\/p>\n
Chief executive Dale Bramley said last week seriously ill people should always still go to an emergency department where they will get priority care.<\/p>\n
But the North Shore ED nurses said nine new nurses announced Friday was not enough.<\/p>\n