The ongoing challenges for hospitals dealing with acute staff shortages and delays in treatment have been laid bare in documents leaked to 1News.
The minutes of a meeting between senior clinicians at Hawke's Bay hospital reveal high levels of concern, not only about patients but also the support from health officials - with issues across a range of specialities.
Orthopaedics are reporting it is operating essentially as an "acute or semi-acute service" with patients waiting at home for days to weeks with fractures before getting surgery.
In the leaked minutes, a group of senior medical officers (SMOs) said they knew they were failing to meet the needs of the community, and a lot of this was because of inadequate infrastructure.
The medical officers said the wellbeing of patients and clinicians continued to be affected by inaction on upgrading infrastructure, despite multiple meetings with the CEO, hospital board, and the health minister.
The hospital's ear, nose, and throat team reported that "it should have done 100 major middle ear cases by this time of year" but had only managed to do seven.
"As a result, two patients have required neurological intervention."
Te Whatu Ora Hawke's Bay chief medical and dental officer Robin Whyman said the minutes reflect an honest conversation between the doctors and medical officers.
"They're a reflection on where we are - as a hospital - and the conversation was an honest conversation between the doctors and senior medical officers who were at the meeting," he said.
"We are in a difficult situation when we have to explain to patients about delays, but our best approach to that is to be honest to people, about the delays, and manage the clinical priorities in front of us as we see them.
"We acknowledge when there are delays that it is concerning for them and that there is the potential of harm."
Meanwhile, three weeks after triple-bypass surgery, Bruce Drummond is relieved to be home. The 68-year-old had to wait weeks in Hawke's Bay hospital - after his heart attack - for bypass surgery that had to be performed in Wellington.
"We got to the stage where it was 40 days from heart attack to operation," he said.
"I spent all that time in the hospital - not able to leave. I was able to walk through the hospital but couldn’t go outside.
"It got pretty demoralizing at the end, I was feeling quite depressed at times."
The 68-year-old said it felt like people in Hawke's Bay were being "short-changed by an inadequate health system."
ACT deputy leader Brooke van Velden wanted greater action to support the region.
"It sounds like this hospital is on life support," she told 1News.
"We have an atrocious record coming through from Hawke's Bay. We've had patients die because they haven't been able to get the care they need for their conditions and these minutes show it's because of a critical underserving of staff in the area."
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