Labour will start fixing overcrowded emergency departments, with more nurses, faster access to hospital beds and more people getting care before they need to go to the ED.<\/p>\n
\u201cPatients are waiting too long, emergency departments are overcrowded, and nurses and doctors are under enormous pressure. Labour has a plan to fix it,\u201d Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said.<\/p>\n
\u201cNational has hired just 54 nurses in two years while hospitals struggle to cope and newly qualified nurses can\u2019t find jobs. That\u2019s not good enough.<\/p>\n
\u201cLabour will get more nurses into the health system, make it easier to see a GP, get patients into hospital beds faster and help more people get urgent care close to home,\u201d Chris Hipkins said.<\/p>\n
Labour\u2019s plan has four priorities: <\/p>\n
\tmoving patients through hospital faster
\n\tgetting people the right care in the right place
\n\tkeeping people healthy and out of hospital,
\n\tstronger leadership from day one<\/p>\n
\u201cSerious delays in ED often happen because there is a lack of beds in hospital wards, creating a backlog in the emergency room,\u201d Labour Health spokesperson Dr Ayesha Verrall said.<\/p>\n
\u201cLabour will stop avoidable delays. We\u2019ll tackle staffing and discharge bottlenecks, prepare hospitals for winter before demand surges, and fund teams to help older people recover safely at home.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll order an immediate report identifying hospital beds that could be opened with the right staffing and make hospitals accountable for getting patients the care they need. The report will also look into deaths and safety linked to long waits.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot everyone who needs urgent care needs a hospital. We\u2019ll train more extended-care paramedics to treat people safely at home or in the community, connect frontline health professionals with urgent-care and emergency specialists, and help people access the medicines they need.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll also tackle the pressure before people reach the emergency department. Three free GP visits a year through our Medicard, free prescriptions, more GP appointments and more local clinics will help people get treatment earlier, before manageable health problems become emergencies.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll end National\u2019s hiring freeze and guarantee every eligible New Zealand-trained graduate nurse a job in our health system. Around 2,400 graduates a year will be offered work, with roles available from 2027.<\/p>\n
\u201cNew Zealanders deserve emergency care when they need it, not hours waiting in an overcrowded department. Labour\u2019s plan will help people get care earlier, get treated faster and recover closer to home,\u201d Ayesha Verrall said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Labour will start fixing overcrowded emergency departments, with more nurses, faster access to hospital beds and more people…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":635734,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[111,43,139,69],"class_list":["post-635733","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635733","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=635733"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635733\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/635734"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=635733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=635733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=635733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}