Ambulance patients were left waiting more than two hours to get into the emergency department at Palmerston North Hospital today.
Krystal Gibbens of RNZ
St John Ambulance has confirmed it is experiencing delays getting patients into hospital care, because of increased winter demand at emergency departments, but says it is continuing to treat and monitor patients until care is safely handed over.
NZ Ambulance Association national secretary Mark Quin said he understood Palmerston North Hospital was overloaded today, which led to the emergency department being unable to take patients as the ambulances arrived.
"Which has created a situation where a number of ambulances have been ramped for a significant amount of time."
Quin said some patients were waiting upwards of 1-2 hours to be passed from ambulance to hospital care.
He said this had a knock-on effect for the wider ambulance network, with an estimated three to four ambulances ramped at times, unable to response to callouts.
"They're not actually able to respond to the purples and the reds, which are the emergency calls where patients need to be under lights and sirens."
Quin said long wait periods for ambulances were becoming increasingly common, and the issue had also been seen at other hospitals, including in Auckland, Waikato and Christchurch.
He said there was also a trend of Mondays in winter being particularly busy.
St John general manager ambulance operations Rosanne Shaw said increased demand over winter was expected, but at times ambulance staff were experiencing some delays transferring patients into the care of hospital staff across the country.
"These delays can occur during periods of high demand," she said. "Our personnel continue to assess, treat, and monitor patients until care is safely handed over."
"We are working closely with Health New Zealand and hospital teams to support patient flow and help ensure ambulances return to the community as quickly as possible."
Shaw said St John remained well prepared for winter demand.
"People should continue to call 111 immediately for life-threatening emergencies. For non-emergency health concerns, we encourage people to seek advice early from their GP, pharmacist, urgent care provider, or Healthline."
Health New Zealand has been approached for comment.
St John said it was working on the problem with Health New Zealand and hospital teams to ensure ambulances got back to the community as quickly as possible.
It comes just days after after a rapid review was released following a man's collapse in an ED toilet after waiting more than eight hours, the review finding his death to be an acute unexpected incident.
The patient in his mid-50s died after a nine-hour wait on June 29. (Source: 1News)
Health New Zealand has confirmed Waikato Hospital ED was more than 20% short on staff the night a man died while waiting to be seen by a specialist.
Association of Salaried Medical Specialists executive director Sarah Dalton told Checkpoint today it was a real frustration for them right around the country that there were a number of services that weren't staffed to cover planned absences, let alone unplanned absences.
She said senior doctors had the lowest level of sick leave taken compared to any other Health New Zealand work group.
"They have to be really sick before they take time off."
Sam and Deanne Browne said the man's death in an emergency department bathroom at Waikato Hospital was "horrific". (Source: 1News)
In the case of ambulance staff who were experiencing getting their patients into emergency departments, she said those delays equalled delays in care.
"If a patient can't be efficiently offloaded from the ambulance into the emergency department, they can't be triaged, they can't be checked, there can't be decisions made about whether they need to be admitted to the hospital," she said.
She said it also meant the ambulance was struck providing care to that one patient and unable to deliver care to other patients.
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