Doctor shortage nearly saw Grey Hospital close doors, health advocate warns

Health New Zealand is playing down concerns it came very close to having to shut the West Coast's biggest hospital this weekend because of staff shortages.

Patient advocate Malcolm Mulholland said he understood a senior doctor shortage meant Te Nikau Grey Hospital may have had to close its doors.

A "domino effect" could have seen Buller Health's acute stabilisation unit, in Westport, also known as Buller Hospital, closed too, he said.

The $21 million health centre has been closed for a total of a month since it opened in May 2023.

"Often they have to do that because doctors are being transferred from servicing Buller Hospital to servicing Greymouth, because Greymouth itself is short."

That could have resulted in severe logistical challenges, Mulholland said.

"They would have had to transfer all of those patients, and possibly those from Buller, over to Christchurch.

"How would they do that? Would they have to hire buses, or would there have been some sort of ambulance convoy? We just don't know how they would have dealt with it, but it wouldn't have been a good situation and it would have been one in which the health of patients was compromised.

"It shouldn't matter what where in the country you live, you should be able to access heath care, in particular emergency care."

West Coast residents were in situations where they could not access the region's sole ambulance because "more times than not it's transferring patients from Westport to Grey [Hospital]", and the helicopter service was weather-dependent, Mulholland said.

"Coasters, frankly, have had a gutsful."

Health New Zealand needed to be more upfront with the public about why that situation existed, and what led up to it, he said.

Health New Zealand West Coast chief medical officer Brendan Marshall acknowledged "some staffing challenges" but said Greymouth Hospital would be operating as usual.

In a statement, Marshall said the safety of patients and staff is Health NZ's top priority.

"Initially, Te Nikau Hospital's ED had some challenges covering this weekend's roster with the appropriate clinical resource. This situation was unique to this weekend and was resolved.

"To be clear, this has never occurred at Te Nikau previously and we do not expect it to occur again."

But Mulholland said rural health care was in a dire predicament.

"One of the things I've found in advocating for those back home on the Coast, is that this is not a unique situation when it comes to rural health settings in Aotearoa.

"Since some of these horror stories have been getting out in terms of what's happening on the West Coast, I've received calls from Hāwera, Kaitāia, Masterton and Oamaru. These are all places that have a rural hospital, but due to staffing pressures they've had to compromise on the services they can provide."

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