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Marlborough Urgent Care Centre will be reducing its hours to 8am until 5pm until new staff are recruited.
Marlborough’s Urgent Care Centre has reduced its opening hours as it struggles to provide enough staff for a “clinically safe service”.
Instead of closing at 8pm, the Blenheim clinic will operate from 8am to 5pm, as there aren’t any doctors available to work the later shifts.The reduced hours will continue until new staff are hired.
Sue Allen, general manager of the Marlborough Primary Health Organisation (MPHO), said the move to cut the opening hours was done in the interest of patients’ wellbeing.
“(We) need to have a clinically safe service and this is dependent on doctors and nursing staff being on shift,” Allen said.
“Urgent Care has no date for returning the hours to 8pm, this will be dependent on recruitment of more staff to fill our rosters.”
The Urgent Care Centre had struggled with staffing issues for the past year. Earlier this month patients were being turned away from the clinic due to doctor shortages.
In September 2022 it was forced to reduce its opening hours for several months due to a lack of staff.
At the time, MPHO chief executive Beth Tester said the reduction in opening hours was due to “workforce difficulties with nursing staff after the end of Covid”.
Allen reiterated the need for people to seek medical advice elsewhere before going to Wairau Hospital’s Emergency Department, which would likely see an influx of patients due to reduced hours at the Urgent Care Centre.
“We will have doctors and nursing staff on each day … Monday to Sunday,” Allen said.
KEVIN STENT/STUFF
Doctors have to “haggle” every time a shift is short of staff, Tanya Wilton of Hutt Hospital ED told Health Minster Andrew Little at the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists annual conference. (Video first published November 25 2022.)
“(But) we want to keep our EDs for emergencies, and not over burden them with minor illness that can be managed out in primary care, by either their GP, pharmacists, Healthline or Practice Plus.”
Amaroa Katu, the MPHO’s community health and operations manager, said Marlborough’s general practices would continue to offer “on the day” acute appointments for enrolled patients.
Those unable to get an appointment, but who met the triage criteria, would be referred to virtual consultation services Practice Plus or Tele-Health, she said.
Members of the public and visitors to the region that went to the Urgent Care Centre and met the triage criteria would also be referred to Tele-Health or Practice Plus, Katu said.
ROB KITCHIN/STUFF
The Government has outlined “six action areas” to boost the number of nurses and doctors amid an ongoing worker shortage.
Steve Low, interim chief medical officer at Te Whatu Ora Nelson Marlborough, said they were assisting the Urgent Care Centre with “planning for urgent care delivery during this temporary reduction in hours”.
“The Wairau Hospital Emergency Department will continue to offer emergency care 24/7, with priority given to those with the most urgent requirements,” he said.
“If people don’t need immediate emergency care, we encourage them to access appropriate alternative care options.
“(But), a reminder, if you have a life-threatening emergency, do not hesitate, call 111.”
