By RNZ

The Nurses Organisation says many patients are waiting 24 hours or longer for a hospital bed, as pressure on the health system ramps up.

The union’s president Anne Daniels said hospital managers around the country were doing the best they could to support patients.

“Many, many patients are now waiting for 24 hours-plus for beds in the hospitals, and that puts them in a very unsafe position because they should be actually getting that specialist care rather than lingering in a corridor in the ED and the ED staff trying to do the best they can to care for them.”

But patients were being put in an unsafe position because they were not able to get the specialist care they needed in a timely manner, she said.

On Thursday, Dunedin Hospital confirmed it was at high capacity due to the number of people going to the emergency department, an increase in Covid cases and staff illness.

College for Emergency Medicine chairwoman Kate Allan said it was not only patients getting sick.

“Sickness is high and unfortunately it’s compounding the problem because the departments are busier than normal as well with increased bed block, which means there’s just a lot of people in the emergency departments and they feel very overcrowded, and there are long waits for people which is very frustrating.”

Dr Allan said many hospital departments were already understaffed.

- RNZ