Thames Hospital Clinical Nurse Specialists Toni Hill (left) and Tina Whibley (right) on the picket line at Thames Hospital. Photo: RNZ / Bella Craig
"They're breaking, we're all breaking."
That is the message from nurses at Thames Hospital who say they are still facing understaffing and under resourcing within the wards, Emergency Department and among the district nursing team.
Last year, Thames Hospital nurses picketed for 21 full-time nurses and 10 were approved.
But the New Zealand Nurses Organisation said Thames Hospital is a still minimum of 26 full-time nurses short.
It has prompted calls for better resourcing of Thames Hospital, especially with the influx of tourists summer will bring, and as patients travel to Thames to avoid long wait times in their own regions.
At the picket outside Thames Hospital on Wednesday, Emergency Department clinical nurse specialist Tina Whibley was distraught.
"You leave going home thinking, I could've done better, I want to do better, I just didn't have the time or the resources to give the care that I want to give," she said.
"We've got young nurses who are doing so well, but they're breaking, we're all breaking."
She was one of about 30 who picketed on Wednesday outside Thames Hospital, the industrial action designed to coincided with a visit to Thames by the minister responsible for rural health, Matt Doocey.
"We got 10 FTEs [full time equivalent staff] allocated which was half of what we were meant to have got. We're still battling for the rest of those nurses," Whibley said.
"In the meantime, our department is getting busier and busier and busier, patients are getting sicker and sicker. We used to have a few sick patients, now the entire department is full of sick patients."
It is not only patient health that is being jeopardised by the lack of staff.
"The day before yesterday, I think we had every police officer in the Coromandel here, because we had four different incidents going on that needed the police."
Thames Hospital Inpatient Unit Nurse Sabrina Liang. Photo: RNZ / Bella Craig
Toni Hill, a clinical nurse specialist in the emergency department, said the community needed to know that the care they were getting was safe. At the moment, she did not believe that it was.
"You feel like you have to ration care, you feel like you can't provide the bedside service that you wanted to.
"You just look out in our waiting room, the numbers are huge and you just feel overwhelmed. When your staff start feeling overwhelmed, then you just don't feel like you can provide good care."
She said patients could wait not just hours, but days, to get a bed.
"We've had patients waiting for beds in our department, in the last month, 42 to 47 hours because they haven't been able to get a bed in our inpatient ward.
"That confounds our wait times for everyone else, because we can't put them in a bed and it's just a tumbleweed."
Patients coming to the hospital from outside of the region are also adding to wait times, she said.
"I've personally had patients that have driven from Matamata, I've had patients that have presented from Pōkeno, and that's not the Pōkeno with the postal code Kaiawa, but it's actually Pōkeno at the bottom of the Bombays.
"Ohinewai, Huntly and they're not in our catchment area, but they think they're going to get seen quicker and they know we'll attempt to give them good care."
Nurse Liz Brundrit said staff were preparing for an onslaught during the summer period when the Coromandel's population bursts with visiting tourists.
"With that increased population, people do get sick, so we don't actually get a break here, we don't get that relief, we don't get to recuperate.
"Burnout is a word I'm hearing a lot, with our nurses at the moment, they're doing longer hours, they are doing more shifts and they are regularly understaffed," she said.
"It's a real worry."
About 30 nurses picketed outside Thames Hospital on Wednesday. Photo: RNZ / Bella Craig
Thames Coromandel District Mayor Len Salt is backing the nurses.
"We are fortunate that we've had some support from the government, but the reality is we're still in crisis, as far as the staffing levels, the workload on the nurses and the medical staff.
"I've made it clear to the ministers that we need some support in that area and the sooner the better."
For Toni Hill, government acknowledgement of the nurses' grievances would be a good place to start.
"I'd like to see them stop this unofficial recruitment freeze, I'd just like them to listen to us, to believe us. Nurses have no reason to lie. Why would we lie about unsafe staffing? About having to ration our patient care?"
"We just don't feel like we're being heard."
Associate Health Minister Matt Doocey, who has responsibility for rural health, said ahead of his visit to Thames today that one of the main themes that had emerged from his tour of rural communities was concern about access to healthcare.
The government was investing $164 million over four years so the majority of New Zealanders could access urgent and after-hours care within an hour's drive of their homes, he said.
Health New Zealand released a statement in response to today's picket attributed to regional chief nurse Cheryl Atherfold.
She acknowledged the work done by nursing staff at Thames Hospital and said the hospital was committed to having "the right staff and skill mix to deliver quality, safe patient care".
"We recognise there is significant pressure on our nursing teams, and we are actively working on measures to provide support however our recruitment process can take some time," she said.
"Over the last 12 months we have grown the nursing roster for the Thames Hospital emergency department by 10.7 FTE and we are continuing to recruit.
"Recruitment is currently underway for 4.8 FTE nurse practitioners and senior nurses to implement a fast-track stream in the emergency department and improve flow to support shorter wait times for patients."
The hospital was committed to working with nursing teams on solutions that worked for staff and patients, she said.
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