Whanganui Hospital’s emergency department is short of staff; Specialist vacancies cause concern

“Issues related to emergency room personnel were high on the agenda.”

Dalton said having only five of a quota of eight specialists in the Emergency Department was a “very significant shortage.”

“A 50% shortage is not far away, so this is a very serious senior staff shortage.

“Our other concern is that the main way the hospital is going to solve this problem is by trying to find temps (temporary staff) to fill the vacancies.”

Dalton said it was his understanding that 75 shifts were covered by local senior medical officers/professionals over the Christmas and New Year period.

Of the five FTEs budgeted, there are two vacant FTE roles for orthopedic surgeons.

There is one vacant FTE role for ENT surgeons (ear nose and throat specialists) with an FTE budgeted for two jobs, a 50% shortage in this department.

There are 0.5 vacant FTE roles for anesthetists with a budgeted FTE of 9.2.

In addition to releasing the information, Health NZ also released a statement saying it acknowledged the increasing pressure on healthcare workers and current shortages in the healthcare workforce.

“I can assure you that Health NZ is absolutely committed to dedicating more resources to the front lines and addressing areas of clinical shortage.

“We are realigning budgets to prioritize ongoing funding for frontline services.”

Dalton said staff numbers at the hospital had gradually decreased over several years, but the service had reached a point where it was “very fragile”.

“If they lose another doctor, it will be very difficult to bring him back,” he said.

Dalton said the impact of current staffing levels on patients will be longer wait times.

“The main problem is that you will be seen by staff who are tired and quite busy, and this is not ideal.

“We have found across a number of services that when vacancy levels become so severe it becomes almost untenable for remaining staff to continue to cope.

“So that’s what we’re really worried about at Whanganui Hospital right now.”

Whanganui Hospital did not appear adequately supported to tackle shortages in emergency and general medicine.

There was also the issue of not having enough junior doctors and having a higher number of less experienced junior doctors, he said.

“What you’re really looking for in your junior doctor workforce is a good mix of skills so they’re not all too early in their careers.

“This is a problem at that hospital as well, because the RMOs they have are often very thin and less experienced.”

The silver lining was that for smaller hospitals, staffing shortages could be resolved relatively quickly if prioritized.

“They’re potentially easy to fix,” Dalton said.

He hoped Health NZ would seek to provide stronger recruitment packages and higher wages to attract hospital staff to Whanganui.

Eva de Jong is a reporter. Whanganui Chronicle Covering health stories and general news. He started reporting in 2023.