Hospital to close ED during night

Oamaru Hospital has less than half the doctors it needs as it continues to be forced to close its emergency department.

Waitaki District Health Services Ltd (WDHS) released a statement yesterday saying Oamaru Hospital will be closing its emergency department tonight and tomorrow from 5pm to 8am.

The emergency department will be open during the day.

Anyone in need of emergency care during Saturday or Sunday night should contact the on-call GP in the first instance, or if it is really serious, an ambulance should be called.

St John is aware of the situation and will have an extra ambulance and crew on station in Oamaru both nights. Emergency patients would be taken to Dunedin.

Local GPs and residential care facilities have also been advised.

Ward patients will also be assessed and potentially might be relocated to Dunedin Hospital, if needed, to ensure their ongoing clinical safety and care.

WDHS chief executive Keith Marshall said it had been working hard alongside Te Whatu Ora but no doctor could be found.

"While we understand that the current nationwide doctor shortage is problematic for the whole sector, it is still a somewhat unbelievable situation that a single solitary doctor simply can not be found anywhere within Te Whatu Ora to avoid the closure of a hospital over a weekend," he said.

"The whole system is really stretched at the moment ... and we do not want to be in this situation but if there is no doctor there can be no emergency care."

He could not say how many people would possibly be moved to Dunedin from the ward but it came down to patient health during the weekend.

He said not every weekend would have closures but there were a few gaps coming up.

This is the third time in less than two months the hospital has had to close its doors because of a lack of doctors.

He said WDHS would ideally have 11 doctors. It was funded for eight under its contract with Te Whatu Ora and added another three through its own means.

At the moment they had five permanent doctors with the rest made up by locums.

"These things always go with swings and roundabouts and we are on the wrong end of the swing at the moment."

"We are trying to get in locums but they are incredibly hard to get."

WDHS has advertised extensively but come up short. Te Whatu Ora was in the same market so it was competitive to get doctors.

Staff were constantly changing. At Christmas time they had a full deck of doctors but that had changed quickly. At the end of last year nurses were in short supply but increased pay after WDHS signed a new contract with Te Whatu Ora had attracted nurses.

Mr Marshall said the doctor shortage came back to decisions made a decade ago when not enough doctors were trained.