- Northland hospitals are being slammed as a twindemic of Covid-19 and flu hits.
- Patients are being treated in corridors or having to wait days to be admitted.
- Better mask use and vaccine uptake would help ease the pressure, an emergency department doctor says.
Northland hospitals are under “unprecedented pressure” as Covid-19 and rising flu infections wreak havoc on the health system.
Dr Gary Payinda said Whangārei Hospital’s emergency department, where he worked, was so full patients were regularly being seen in corridors or treated in chairs.
Many patients sick enough to be admitted had to wait more than 24 hours for a ward bed to become available.
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The same problems were being seen in hospitals up and down the country, which have been hit by two years of Covid-19, increasing flu infections and worn-out staff, Payinda said.
Kathryn George/Stuff
Northland’s hospitals are consistently at maximum capacity and staff are fatigued after two years of the pandemic. (File photo)
Northland had also been impacted by the lowest Covid-19 vaccination rates in the country, low general practice doctor numbers and delayed elective surgeries, he said.
The danger of overcrowding was highlighted earlier this month when a woman walked away from Auckland’s Middlemore Hospital due to the long wait in the emergency department, only to die from a brain haemorrhage she suffered hours later.
But Payinda said the incident was not an isolated case in New Zealand.
“Issues of overcrowding are common and prevalent, and of course there are patients being harmed daily.”
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Dr Gary Payinda is an emergency doctor at Whangārei Hospital, where he says patients are being treated in chairs. (File photo)
Payinda said better mask use and more encouragement of vaccinations was essential to get through the crisis.
Northland medical officer of health Dr Bart Willems said flu admissions were increasing in Northland’s hospitals and all four hospitals were experiencing “unprecedented levels of pressure”.
“The ongoing issue is an after-effect from the Covid-19 pandemic, where we had to delay some non-acute care and surgeries.”
Willems said there was a risk of people contracting both the flu and Covid-19 within a short space of time, leading to a more severe illness.
To help, the health board had been discharging patients as soon as they were stable and then following up with a post-discharge service. Virtual consultations were also being used for non-urgent emergency department patients, Willems said.
Payinda said the situation could be helped by the Government mandating mask use in workplaces and schools, as well as better encouragement of mask use where they were required.
“Wearing a mask is the top one, two and three steps that people can take,” he said.
Payinda said Covid-19 booster shots and flu jabs needed to be encouraged.
Willems said the flu was worse this year because of a lack of immunity due to two years of Covid-19 border controls.
He encouraged high-risk people – those old, young, pregnant or with existing medical conditions – to contact their doctor early to find out if they needed treatment.
