Nelson Hospital ‘dangerous at times and getting worse’

Tuesday, 1 April 2025

Nelson Hospital nurse Gemma Fern says hospital conditions can be dangerous and more staff are needed.

A Nelson nurse says the city's hospital is dangerous at times 'and it’s getting worse'.

Her comments come as, on Tuesday, Health New Zealand Te Whatu Ora flew in a team of senior clinicians to assess the situation at Nelson Hospital, after senior doctors raised safety concerns.

Now, information released under the Official Information Act shows that the number of clinical safety first reports at the hospital increased 72% in the past five years, from 837 in 2020 to 1445 reports in 2024. That’s almost four a day.

Surgical reports increased 30% in the same period from 123 to 160, and clinical support reports 44% from 50 to 72.

The increase doesn’t surprise NZ Nurses Organisation delegate Gemma Fern, who has worked at the hospital for three years in the medical ward.

If anything, safety incidents would be under-reported because staff didn’t have time to do them, she said.

Nurses were the first line of defence at a hospital.

“We’re the ones that are there, if something goes wrong, we’re the ones that are gonna pick up on it.

“If you’re deteriorating, or you’re getting sicker in your physical condition, it’s up to the nurse to actually pick up on that and escalate it.”

NZ Nurses Organisation delegate Gemma Fern, who works at Nelson Hospital in the medical ward, says the hospital can be dangerous, and it needs more staff.

But many nurses were so overworked that important tasks - such as turning patients to prevent bedsores - could fall to the bottom of the priority list.

It made it a tough and stressful place for nurses who were often in tears and risked burn-out, she said.

“It's a stressful job anyway, being a nurse, it's always gonna be hard and it's always gonna be challenging, but there are days where I go to work and I'm like I don't know how much longer I can keep up with this.

“It's sad, actually, there's times where I feel it's been dangerous and that is getting worse.”

There was a sense of being “on edge” when nurses were juggling multiple patients complex needs, she said.

“All it’s gonna take is for one person to deteriorate for everything to unravel and make it dangerous … it’s a sense of waiting for something bad to happen.”

The solution was simple, she said - they needed more staff.

“I’m a nurse; I’m a person; I’m a human being. I’m not Superwoman, I don’t have magic.”

Patient safety came back to needing better staffing, she said.

Safety concerns have been raised about Nelson Hospital. (File photo)

“The people of Nelson deserve better … we all need to go to sleep at night knowing that if something happens with your health there is a safe place to go.”

Nelson Hospital anaesthetist Dr Katie Ben said the hospital was at a “tipping point”.

“We’ve been kind of keeping our head above water and the currents just got too strong for us,” she said. “And it’s now just pulling everything under and it’s absolutely that tipping point of we can’t do it now with the staff we have.”

That put patient safety at risk. For example, Ben said a lack of support for the hospital’s sole vascular surgeon, despite repeated requests over seven years, meant waiting times were now so long patients had to have amputations “because we can’t see them in time to save their legs”.

Ben said the root problems at Nelson Hospital, along with other regional hospitals, were that infrastructure and staffing had not kept pace with patient demand, particularly as the population aged and cases became more complex.

Ben, who is also the national president of the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists, said staff were speaking out because they wanted Nelson patients to feel safe and be safe.

“There is no openness and transparency about the fact that they (patients) are being failed,” she said

Health Minister Simeon Brown said that, from Tuesday, Health New Zealand would deploy a team of senior clinicians to Nelson to assess the situation at the hospital.

“My expectation is that this team engage with hospital staff and work with local leadership to reduce wait times for patients.”

Nelson’s waitlists were “unnacceptable”, he said.

“The last Government removed health targets which led to a significant blow out in wait times for both elective treatment and first specialist assessments … As Minister of Health, my priority is ensuring that all New Zealanders have access to timely, quality healthcare.

“We are taking action to rectify the situation in Nelson, and I look forward to Health New Zealand’s report back on recommendations.”

Health New Zealand deputy chief executive Te Waipounamu Martin Keogh said he acknowledged the concerns of doctors and managers over staffing at Nelson and Wairau hospitals, which had affected patient wait times and first specialist appointments.

“I want to reassure staff we are listening and already have a range of initiatives underway, as well as more on the horizon that we are working through as quickly as possible,” he said.

They included $6.6 million approved in the past two years to recruit registrars and senior medical officers in general, surgical, ICU, ED and oncology, plus additional nurses in patient and risk team, ICU and oncology.

It was also exploring additional bed options in other parts of the hospital.

Keogh said a number of factors contributed to Nelson Hospital being behind in first specialist appointments. They included the impact of Covid 19 and post-Covid recruitment challenges and the reduction of senior medical officers in some services due to long-term leave and illness.

However, he said in other categories, such as immunisation and shorter ED stays, Nelson performed better than the national average.

“Please be assured that concerns for all patients who are waiting longer than they should are being taken seriously, and we are doing all we can to prioritise patient care in a timely way,” Keogh said.