Working in an overcrowded emergency department (ED), up to 680% capacity over a week, makes staff feel overwhelmed with the pressure, Tōpūtanga Tapuhi Kaitiaki o Aotearoa NZNO says.
For Whanganui Hospital ED delegate and nurse Kathryn Fleming and her colleagues, the pressure of having to decide who to prioritise in an ED and whom to see later is literally placing patients’ lives in the hands of emergency health workers.
"It’s a day-in day-out scenario in our ED. We have to keep an eye on the patients waiting knowing that the wrong decision could end very badly for them. It’s like playing God and not a nice feeling to have.
"The ED goes into code red on multiple occasions because of the huge numbers we have to triage with issues."
She says from 2-9 September the average bed occupancy in ED over those seven days was 680%.
"ED has 15 beds, and another seven beds for acute assessment ward patients. In those seven days there were 503 arrivals, averaging 79 per day. Given the number of beds and the number of patients treated, that’s a huge health and safety risk. "
She says it’s difficult to take a break while working in ED knowing that people waiting need to be watched.
"One patient lost consciousness and was found unresponsive recently. Luckily, they were spotted and a tragedy averted."
Kathryn Fleming says the root cause of problems in health care is underfunding, which leads to short-staffing, declining infrastructure maintenance, and failure to retain frustrated staff.
"The health system is in a desperate state and needs an urgent overhaul. It begins with properly funding primary care services. This is one of the major causes of overcrowding in EDs. If people are treated timeously by their GPs there’s no need to be sitting in a hospital ED.
"Better funding of Te Whatu Ora would also lead to hiring more staff and better retention of health workers because happy, supported employees don’t leave."