The latest data from Te Whatu Ora shows Tairāwhiti has a senior medical officer vacancy rate of more than 30% – the highest across all health districts.

Senior doctor Alex Raine, speaking on behalf of more than 30 doctors who collectively wrote to decision-makers, said things had got to a critical point.

“Most of our departments are significantly short, some have essentially 10 to 12% of the staffing that they should have,” he said.

Raine said the hospital currently had one half-time radiologist, one ophthalmologist, one dentist, and a third of the number of anaesthetists it should have.

He said its operating theatre was at half capacity on some weeks, with only about 15 surgery slots, due to the shortage of anaesthetists.

Raine said one of the anaesthetists spent 50 nights on call this year – double the amount they were supposed to be working.

The paediatric ward was also struggling after one doctor retired and another took long-term sick leave, he said.

“The remaining staff had so much pressure on them that we’ve now had additional staff leave, and they’re down to less than half the staff they need to have to keep their service running.

“Which of course means that the children of our region are unfortunately having longer and longer wait times to be seen for referrals and then, of course, that means the remaining staff are having to cover a 24-7 call schedule, with just a few of them, which is just not sustainable.”

Raine said the single eye doctor who was on a 0.8 full-time equivalent role is concerned about his patients.

“He’s raised examples of folks who are losing their vision because they aren’t able to get in and be seen in a timely manner.”

Te Whatu Ora’s hiring freeze of non-frontline roles made matters worse, with doctors having to pick up the slack, Raine said.

“I’m working a significant portion of my time every week as a recruiter to try to get junior doctors here, because we have a junior doctor shortage as well. I spend a significant amount of my time every week dealing with IT problems, because we have inadequate IT support, so that impact has been significant.”

On Thursday, Reti told Parliament help was on its way to Gisborne Hospital.

“Health NZ CEO has met with senior staff, a local management team is working with an international recruitment team on critical vacancies requiring a focused approach to swift onboarding,

“Health NZ is assigning HR resources to help Tairāwhiti to develop a retention and recruitment plan specifically for the district and Health NZ’s move to a more regionally based model will be an important step to ensure Tairāwhiti can access support from other hospitals for specialist services as needed,” he said.

But the minister has made no commitment to calls from doctors to lift recruitment restrictions for Tairāwhiti or to reduce vacancy levels to 10% within 12 months.

“Both Health New Zealand and I are committed to overcoming the longstanding issues which have impacted on healthcare in the region,” he said.

Last week, Te Whatu Ora chief executive Margie Apa met with senior staff at Gisborne Hospital.

She said the organisation was working on a range of strategies to maintain the best care for patients in Tairāwhiti.

“I see our move to a more regionally based model as the first step in this process where Tairāwhiti may need more support from other hospitals for some specialist services,” she said.

However, Association of Salaried Medical Specialists director Sarah Dalton said that alone would not solve the issue.

“A regional approach is not going to solve issues that the Tairāwhiti district faces, they already have a really dispersed community and very high demand.

“The people of Tairāwhiti of the East Coast deserve good face-to-face care, with people who are committed to living and working in that area. Yes, there are some services that will always need to be provided from outside of Gisborne… but for the bulk of the care that people need here, it needs to be provided locally by local people,” she said.

Dalton said it was unsustainable for the hospital to rely heavily on locum cover, and that it was an inefficient use of funds in the long term.

She was calling for more incentives for doctors to work in Tairāwhiti.

“It is an area that clearly needs incentives provided to clinicians… they need to have better terms and conditions than those who choose to live and work in urban areas, and the difficulty of the work there and the difficulty of recruitment needs to be recognised.”

Dalton said the region’s largest GP practice, Three Rivers Medical Centre, recently cutting its after-hours and weekend service and closing its books to new patients had also added further strain to Gisborne Hospital.

Te Whatu Ora said the newly appointed deputy chief executive Cath Cronin would meet with the Tairāwhiti senior medical group next week to make further progress on addressing the issues doctors had raised.