The hundred days target the Southern District Health Board set itself to address its issues with bed block is about to pass without them being solved. A board meeting yesterday agreed the issue was a long-term one which the SDHB would have to continue to work on. The SDHB formed a patient flow task force which was charged with finding a response to the problem within 100 days, a deadline which SDHB chairman Pete Hodgson yesterday said he accepted would not be enough. Bed block issues had been most acute over long holiday weekends, and more stringent planning for patient numbers for every weekend was now in place, SDHB director of nursing Jane Wilson said. Community Health Council chairwoman Karen Brown said she doubted the job of solving patient flow issues would ever end, but she was confident everything possible was being done to address it.

Source: Otago Daily Times May 04, 2021 16:40 UTC