At one stage on Monday 12 ambulances were waiting to offload patients. Photo: ST JOHN NZ
A provisional improvement notice (PIN) has been issued to Waikato Hospital's emergency department (ED) in response to concerns about unsafe staffing levels.
The issuing of the PIN follows Hato Hone St John declaring a major incident for Waikato on Monday after ambulances had to wait with patients at the hospital for a record number of hours.
Janferie Dewar, a registered nurse and health and safety representative at the hospital, issued the PIN and said severe staff shortages and unmanageable workloads had made the department critically unsafe.
Dewar said more than 150 staff across the hospital had signed a document in support of the notice - ranging from nurses to health care assistants, students, cleaners, paramedics and doctors.
"Even after three letters of recommendation to Te Whatu Ora Waikato management since April this year, the health and safety risks in the ED have not been addressed to anywhere near an acceptable level. Despite ongoing meetings with management nothing significant has changed even though the ED is almost in code red by default."
Hato Hone St John said on Monday it experienced the highest ramping hours it had on record at Waikato Hospital.
Hato Hone St John's deputy chief executive Dan Ohs said ramping was when ambulance staff spent more than 30 minutes handing over the care of a patient to a hospital.
"At the peak on Monday, 12 ambulances were ramped at Waikato Hospital, with five patients being in a serious condition," Ohs said.
He said ramping hours were up the same day across the country with 204 ramping hours recorded, compared to the winter average of 130 hours; 60 of those recorded hours were in Waikato.
As a result of the ramping, Hato Hone St John declared a major incident in Waikato.
"Other ambulance resources were used from around the district to maintain a safe response to patients," Ohs said.
Te Whatu Ora Waikato said a higher than normal number of patients (85) arrived at Waikato Hospital by ambulance that day.
Spokesperson Michelle Sutherland said this led to the highest ramping hours they have on record at the hospital.
"Waikato Hospital's ED is currently fully recruited for medical staff and health care assistants in ED and nearly fully recruited for nursing staff," she said.
Sutherland said they activated elements of the hospital's winter plan to manage the high numbers.
"A planning meeting was held with Hato Hone - St John and an ambulance waiting area (AWA) established to enable ambulances to drop patients off and return to their primary role.
"An AWA is a dedicated space within ED where patients can be transferred from ambulances and be seen by an emergency medicine physician."
Figures provided to RNZ by Hato Hone St John Ambulance in May showed ramping has increased more than threefold nationwide since 2019.
The service allows 30-minutes for a crew to hand over a patient to hospital staff, complete documentation, restock and debrief. Any minute over that counts as ramping.
In the first three months of this year, those extra minutes added up to 10,249 hours - or 427 days. In the same period in 2019 the figure was about 3300 hours.
