The situation has caught the attention of the doctors’ union, who worry that many young people are missing out on treatment.
Recently one of the Southern health district’s top paediatricians Dr Paul Trani went on extended leave, forcing Health New Zealand (HNZ) to advise Dr Trani’s clients to seek help via a GP.
Comments on social media about the situation were not appreciative, with people complaining about being ‘‘bumped from pillar to post’’ and calling the present state of paediatrics in the South ‘‘ugly’’.
HNZ acknowledged the situation was ‘‘difficult’’ and promised new consultants would be available by the end of the month.
Documents released under the Official Information Act showed that 6339 GP referrals in the Southern health district for specialist paediatric treatment had been declined in the past three years, including 2500 requests last year alone, a nearly 60% increase on the 1563 declines in 2023.
Association of Salaried Medical Specialists chief executive Sarah Dalton said the figures were appalling whichever way you looked at them.
‘‘I’ve got concerns on two fronts. The first is potential harm to patients, and the second is actually moral injury to the health workers who are having to manage that rate of declines.’’
Capacity was a major issue, too, Ms Dalton said.
‘‘We’re also really conscious that the Southern region, I think, is geographically the largest health district in the country.
‘‘So, we’re not just talking an urban problem here. We’re talking a number of families who live rurally, remotely, and for whom access to health services is going to be a real challenge.’’
Simply sending people back to their GP was not really a viable option.
‘‘There’s the harm to patients, but there’s also the harm to staff who are actually under significant pressure not to access the leave that they need because they know when they take leave — either for annual leave, for study leave, or conference leave, or for sick leave — there is pressure on them not to do that or to try to organise their own cover if, in fact, cover is available.
‘‘What we try to get Health New Zealand to do is to staff services sufficiently that there is a little bit of give there — because we know that everyone has leave entitlements, right?’’
Ms Dalton said the HNZ districts must give health leaders ‘‘permission to recruit’’.
‘‘We know that there are people out there that would be applying for jobs if jobs were being advertised, and we also need to ensure that — you know, there are existing clauses in our collective agreements that are for retention and recruitment.
‘‘More specialists leads to earlier treatment. The earlier you can diagnose and treat people’s health conditions, the better off everybody is and the cheaper it is for the system.
‘‘It also causes less disruption to families and so there’s those wider economic and productivity issues that hit people really hard if a family is having to make multiple trips to try to get care for their child or a dependent family member.’’
HNZ Southern group director of operations Craig Ashton said they were experiencing workforce challenges, including paediatric consultant and junior medical staff vacancies.
‘‘As a result, we are prioritising appointments based on clinical urgency, and children with less urgent needs may wait longer than usual to be seen,’’ he said.
Recruitment was under way, with new consultants expected to join the service from the end of May.
Asked about the referrals situation, Mr Ashton said all referrals were carefully reviewed and triaged by their specialist teams in line with clinical guidelines.
‘‘Where a referral is not accepted, this is generally because the child’s condition can be safely managed in primary care, often with specialist advice provided to support the child’s GP. Patients can be re-referred if their condition changes or requires specialist input.’’
Patients previously under the care of Dr Trani, who still required specialist paediatric assessment or treatment, would be seen by another paediatrician, Mr Ashton said.
‘‘We recognise that waiting for care can be stressful for families and appreciate their patience while we work through this period of high demand.
‘‘We encourage families awaiting appointments to remain in contact with their GP, who can update referrals if there are changes in a child’s condition.’’
If you are affected contact matthew.littlewood@odt.co.nz
