Southern District Health Board CEO Chris Fleming says the data is counter-intuitive: nurse numbers are up, hospital occupancy is down, but staff say they're struggling with workloads. An increased focus on safe staffing seems to be the reason behind recent bed blocks at Southland and Dunedin hospitals. Speaking at the Southern District Health Board meeting Tuesday, chief executive officer Chris Fleming said beds were closed when there were roster gaps or high-needs patients, to make sure staff weren’t working with clinically unsafe workloads. Southland Hospital offers 80 beds in its surgical and medical wards, with a further 88 in its maternity, neonatal, children’s ward, critical care unit, assessment treatment and rehabilitation and mental health wards. Nine more full-time specialist nurses were employed at Southland Hospital in the past year, bringing the total to 336.

Source: Stuff May 05, 2021 04:18 UTC