The pressure at Auckland City hospital comes despite a recent upgrade to increase clinical and waiting areas. Photo: 123rf.com
Ambulances are facing delays dropping off patients to to Auckland emergency departments as all of the city's hospitals are under "significant pressure".
Hato Hone St John says there had been delays handing patients over to Auckland City and Middlemore Hospitals on Monday afternoon.
It was working with HealthNZ/Te Whatu Ora and hospitals to manage the situation, including using telehealth and taking patients to non-hospital clinics.
Some emergency departments were so busy, some ambulance patients were being diverted to non-hospital clinics.
Some patients were being taken to other clinics and using telephone assessments, St John Auckland operations manager Andy Everiss said in a statement said.
However, ambulance teams were focused on making sure those who had "time critical needs" were not delayed, he said.
"Patient safety is paramount, and we are working collaboratively with hospital staff to optimise the process of transferring the care of patients who need to be admitted to ED," he said in a statement.
Sources have told RNZ the city's emergency departments have been extremely busy in the last few weeks as winter illnesses hit hard.
The pressure at Auckland City hospital comes despite a recent upgrade to increase clinical and waiting areas.
Emergency clinicians have spoken out for years about the pressure they are under, winter and summer, but always urge all patients who are seriously unwell to come to the hospital no matter how busy it is.
Care 'always' available - Health NZ
Auckland Hospital bosses urged people who needed emergency care to keep turning up, despite the pressures.
Health NZ Northern acting deputy chief executive Vanessa Thornton said it would never turn anyone away from emergency departments when they needed care.
"Our hospitals' emergency departments have been very busy, which is expected at this time of year, but we want to reassure people in the region needing hospital-level emergency care that they will always receive it," she said.
There were plans in place to manage high demand.
Thornton, also an emergency doctor at Middlemore, told RNZ it was not unusual for ambulances to divert patients to non -hospital clinics if that was the best place for them to get care.
She said though Monday night was very busy, it was not as busy as it had been at other times in the past few weeks, and did not meet the threshold for Auckland and Middlemore to move to 'emergency escalation' status where ambulances were diverted to other hospitals.
But hospitals were under a lot of pressure in general because of winter illnesses. Hospitals were full across the city, and Mondays tended to be the busiest day of the week, she said.
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