At Facebook:
The Dunedin Hospital eye department’s throughput is commendable despite the lack of chairs and wait space provided by the fat cat, high fee-earning Team of Commissioners led by lawyer Kathy Grant….
As a user of the department’s services, there’s been no impediment to my eye treatment and monitoring at any time. I have never had to sit on the floor, nor would I even contemplate doing so —silly Sheep!
The staff were exactly right to complain to their union.
—
### ODT Online Wed, 5 Jul 2017
Elderly patients forced to sit on floor
By Eileen Goodwin
Older patients were forced to sit on the floor while waiting for an appointment in the crisis-hit eye department at Dunedin Hospital, prompting a complaint from staff to their union. Public Service Association organiser Julie Morton said the lack of adequate waiting space was a health and safety issue. “There are frequently not enough seats in the waiting room to accommodate those waiting, and they have to sit on the floor,” Mrs Morton wrote to the Southern District Health Board last month. Some of the patients who had to sit on the floor were older people.
Read more
****
D’oh, Ms Kathy Grant doesn’t believe in the value of Democracy in the Southern Region. Does the Southern community want the non-egalitarian, fryable Ms Grant to serve out her term to 2019.
### ODT Online Wed, 5 Jul 2017
Need for elected health board role downplayed
By Eileen Goodwin
The “truly unique” arrangements at Southern District Health Board will not adversely affect the Dunedin Hospital rebuild, commissioner Kathy Grant says. The Government is planning a hospital redevelopment potentially worth more than $1billion, and there are no elected representatives to influence the project because the board was sacked. Mrs Grant said the SDHB’s relationship with the Ministry of Health was no different than if an elected board was in place. “I’m not sure what additional dimension the existence of a traditional board would necessarily bring to that relationship.” […] The Otago Daily Times has been told by a contact, who would not be named, that the Cabinet would consider three options outlined [for the proposed new hospital] in an indicative business case, the most expensive of which costs more than $1 billion. After that decision, the rebuild governance group and the ministry would look at where to build and whether land needed to be acquired.
Read more
—
Posted by Elizabeth Kerr
This post is offered in the public interest.
*Image: dailymail.co.uk – article: Why are my blinking eyes so sore and watery?
What if? Dunedin... 
They didn’t order/receive extra chairs in time…. what would normal people do? Put out a call for spare chairs from elsewhere in the building?
At the ODT tomorrow, outrageous news….
ODT has been told that the new public hospital for Dunedin has been put off for longer !!!
More years….
The government knows it doesn’t hold the Dunedin seats or has any chance of gaining them off Labour.
So. No Rush. Better to spend money on stuff like the America’s Cup where Bill can back up his ‘Yusss. You beauty’ with MONEY.
At Facebook:
And now the story that the response to a 23 week wait for an MRI as part of a possible cancer diagnosis is – “get it done privately”. 23 weeks is the normal wait for a semi-urgent case. Not acceptable, but I’m sure that the SDHB will urgently get some “communications” specialists onto it asap.
The idea of the author consenting without demur to such insalubrity is risible.
Moreover, the old eye patched gentlemen would go “Attica!” Attica!”
BETTER NEWS
Fri, 7 Jul 2017
ODT: Cancer scan now this month
By Eileen Goodwin
A woman who faced a 23-week wait for a crucial scan has now been told she will get the procedure this month. Kirsty Lewis (48), of Dunedin, said [she] was contacted by Dunedin Hospital this morning after her story appeared on the front page of the Otago Daily Times. “I’ve had a phone call this morning from the hospital and have an appointment for Thursday, 20 July. She said I shouldn’t have received that letter, and seemed to be making it out to be a clerical error,” Ms Lewis told the ODT. Ms Lewis had been referred for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to rule out cancer in her liver. Ms Lewis was treated for breast cancer in 2013. […] “My breast-care specialist referred me to the hospital for an MRI to rule out the breast cancer having metastasised to the liver.” The 23-week wait was unacceptable as cancer was life-threatening, she said yesterday. Cont/
At Facebook:
Sat, 15 Jul 2017
ODT: Dept too busy for eye checks
By Eileen Goodwin
An 83-year-old may have to take out a loan for private treatment because Dunedin Hospital’s eye department is too busy to see him. John Elsey’s referral from his general practitioner has been turned down because the department no longer accepts cases that are labelled routine. He was told the department could not see him because of “medical staff resourcing”. […] The board has since declined to release overdue eye patient numbers, repeatedly saying it is formulating a new method of counting them after an external review recommended a change. Cont/
—
Have to ask why I easily got seen post cataract surgery (routine!) and again a year later (this year)… seems opthalmology resources are not being evenly prioritised or shared.
I imagine you kind of know who might kick up a fuss so you please them! Haha
Could be. Isn’t that sad for those less well positioned to speak their mind.
Yes, quite so. Speaking your mind is not something l find many Kiwis are good at. Subjective view on my part.
Didn’t the man in this latest article say he wasn’t one of those who could push and hassle and make a fuss? There are many people like that, hate being “pushy”, don’t even know how to do it, where to start. Quietly pushed off the list – hurrah, the list has shortened again, haven’t we done well!
Proof that they CAN manage without more funding, it’s only a matter or trying harder (to refuse treatment).
The answer to this situation is for Mr Elsey to visit his optician and undergo a fields test and have the pressure in his eyes measured. That will identify any onset of glaucoma and he would then be referred to the hospital by his optician. Glaucoma and cataracts are different conditions and a GP cannot do the appropriate tests for glaucoma. Opticians have the necessary equipment and most will check for glaucoma during a routine eye check for prescription glasses.
That is why the hospital says “Currently the ophthalmology service is only able to accept referrals that are triaged as urgent or semi-urgent.”
My optician did precisely that and I have had no problem having my glaucoma checked at the clinic during the past 18 months to 2 years.
The ODT chooses to run with any wiff of trouble in any department at the hospital and the reporter concerned would do well to properly research what she writes.
Mr Elsey should have gone to his optician to have his condition “triaged” rather than the ODT because the last time I looked the ODT did not have anyone on staff who can help him.
We don’t know the entirety of Mr Elsey’s condition. So what might appear logical to you or I may not be to his optician or Ophthalmology. Perhaps ODT was respectful enough not to ask for further medical history.
You’re entirely right about not using media who lack specialist knowledge in the field, to mediate.
Good luck Mr Elsey.
If Mr Elsey was told *by the eye dept* to return for check ups why would he go elsewhere? He’s not the expert. IF eye dept OR optician checkups are both OK it’s up to the expert he saw to tell him that, not hope he guesses.
Feel a disaster coming on.
At Facebook:
****
Wed, 19 Jul 2017
ODT: Third of SDHB’s senior doctors, dentists plan to leave
By Eileen Goodwin
Nearly a third of Southern District Health Board senior doctors and dentists plan to leave in the next five years, a senior doctors’ survey has found. Nationally, the figure was 24%. The survey drew responses from 171 SDHB members of the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists. The doctors were asked three questions – whether they intended to leave DHB employment (11.5% at SDHB; 5.4% nationally); whether they intended to leave medicine entirely (a further 22% at SDHB; 16% nationally), and whether they intended to leave the country. Cont/
This is horrendous.
Perhaps since politicians are as much use as chocolate teapots we locals need to invent a “stay incentive” so as to counteract all the unhappiness-makers they deal with at work, hampering their work, devouring their wellbeing.
Like… volunteer gardeners for those who have homes and gardens and lawns
Firewood stackers
Babysitters esp when kid has one of those kid colds and has to stay home from daycare or school
Cake and cookie makers
Vege suppliers – fresh, clean, from home gardens
Drivers to take them somewhere nice when they’re not working but too knackered to make the effort.
Drycleaning picker-uppers
Finder-shoppers for those odd things that you have to search (no we had them last year, have you tried XYZ in Fox Street?) for.
Yes, I know they probably earn enough to pay for all these things but sometimes it’s not about money, it’s about actual real people showing how much they care – about our hospital and about the exploited, stuffed-around staff who want to do the expert work they’re good at, not wrangle inadequate equipment and premises, not be at the mercy of indecisive funders, and management that’s more interested in “managing” for the benefit of political masters than addressing health needs in our patch.
Storms here and approaching for healthcare:
At Facebook: