The Public Service Association will meet Otago District Health Board management this week to discuss how to ‘‘make the best of a bad situation'' over proposed cuts to mental health services, organiser Mark Ryan says.
About 40 association members at both Dunedin and Wakari hospitals met late last week to discuss plans to reduce services to non-acute patients so the hospitals can better staff its overflowing acute wards.
Mr Ryan said members would be looking to finalise protocols about how staff would be deployed and would be seeking some recognition from the board for the disruption caused to those who offered to undertake work in the acute wards.
Members were also seeking a declaration from the board that it is committed to resolving the retention and recruitment problems by offering internationally competitive wages, terms and conditions.
The argument was the same as that for senior doctors and needed to be addressed with the Government, Mr Ryan said.
There also needed to be discussion about what would happen if after three months the crisis had not gone away.
‘‘What is plan B? What does this mean for the future of adult mental health services?'' Mr Ryan asked.
The hospital's plans, which include closing day programmes at Dunedin Hospital and reducing beds in the rehabilitation ward at Wakari Hospital by eight, are expected to be finalised before the health board meeting on Thursday.
- Otago and Southland district health boards' recruitment drive in Europe, begun last year, has resulted in six new staff so far.
These are a junior doctor for each of the boards, three mental health nurses for Otago and one for Southland.
Three more possible recruits were visiting now, Otago board chief operating officer Vivian Blake said.
The boards will repeat their visit to the United Kingdom job expo again this year but will not include a trip to the Netherlands because it proved unfruitful last year.
Last year's trip cost about $145,000 but this year's trip would be cheaper without the Netherlands visit and set-up costs.
A BBC programme filmed last year featuring a Scottish mental health nurse's lifestyle in Dunedin - Wanted Down Under - screened at the end of January in Britain.
In a report to the board's hospital advisory committee meeting last week, chief nursing officer Teresa Bradfield said Otago and the mental health services ‘‘featured beautifully'' in the programme.
At the end of February, the board recorded 134 vacancies, down six from the previous month.
Thirty-nine of those were for mental health nurses.
