The High Dependency Unit at Wairau Hospital in Blenheim is set to return to full operations after two weeks of merging with another ward due to staff shortages.
Nelson Marlborough District Health Board chief medical officer Nick Baker said Covid-19 and the related border closures had led to staffing challenges. Photo: Chloe Ranford/ LDR
The unit was merged on 1 January and is anticipated to return to normal operations on Monday.
The Nelson Marlborough District Health Board's chief medical officer Nick Baker said they tried to give as many staff leave over Christmas as possible.
"To some extent this is the normal summer planning event, although closing HDU is not something we'd usually do and in fact we didn't close HDU we merged it with one of the surgical wards."
The nursing staff who were usually in HDU had been moved to the Emergency Department, but two HDU beds were still available, he said.
The DHB was constantly trying to recruit new staff, Baker added.
"We have 24 new graduate nurses starting this week, we've just a new intake of junior doctors as well."
He said the staff turnover rate was about 11 to 13 percent over the long term and it had continued at that rate.
"Like every other DHB we have got staffing challenges, our workforce has had to pick up new work with contact tracing, vaccinating, swabbing and managing Covid in the community.
"We are spread more thinly and that is just the reality of Covid and the associated challenges like border closures," he said.
