The Southern District Health Board cancelled all planned surgeries at Dunedin Hospital this morning due to severe staff shortages.
Emergency care was still being provided, but acute and elective surgery had to be postponed or cancelled due to the scarcity of staff available to work in operating theatres, chief operating officer Hamish Brown said.
‘‘We understand deferring surgery will be upsetting for our patients and we are committed to ensuring these surgeries are re-booked quickly.’’
It was unknown how many patients were affected by the sudden cancellation of their procedures.
Today’s situation was different from the ‘‘Code Black’’alert declared by the SDHB last year, during which it restricted access to the hospital for new patients.
That alarm was activated largely due to a critical shortage of available bed space in Dunedin Hospital, whereas today’s problem was mostly due to an extraordinary number of staff calling in sick.
‘‘Sustained pressure on our health care system, together with high numbers of emergency department presentations, Covid-19, staff fatigue and illness has increased the challenges for our already busy hospital,’’ Mr Brown said.
Both SDHB management and staff have been warning for some weeks that its wards were under serious pressure due to staff shortages, caused both by illness and by the inability of the board to hire extra staff — something which is a New Zealand-wide problem.
Some DHBs have had 20% or more of their work force off sick with Covid-19 or seasonal influenza, or having been forced to isolate due to being a Covid-19 close contact.
The SDHB has attempted to keep some level of acute and elective surgery going in recent weeks despite staff shortages and the dedicated Covid-19 ward at Dunedin Hospital generally being full, but that proved impossible to maintain today.
Mr Brown hoped that the hospital would be able to resume a normal workload as soon as possible.
Dunedin Hospital has been closed to visitors due to Covid-19 outbreaks on some wards, but was scheduled to reopen this afternoon.
