Surgical bed cuts defended

The closure of 10 surgical beds at Palmerston North Hospital is not quite the frontline health service cut that it seems, says MidCentral Health clinical director for internal medicine Mark Beale.

Palmerston North MP Iain Lees-Galloway, Labour's associate health spokesman, has criticised the closure, which he saw as part of a national attack on health services that would hurt patients.

But Dr Beale said the temporary closure of the beds in Wards 24 and 29 since January had proved they were not needed to maintain services.

The temporary loss of those beds had been offset by the opening, last year, of the eight-bed women's surgical unit, and setting up of the 13-bed medical assessment and planning unit.

Those improvements had helped keep medical patients out of surgical beds, and guaranteed beds would be available for a range of women's surgical procedures.

Since those changes no elective surgeries had to be postponed because of bed shortages. There had also been a 10 per cent drop in demand for acute surgery, making it easier for the hospital to operate within its capacity.

Originally, only four beds in each ward were closed, but director of nursing Sue Wood said closing an extra bed in each allowed for more efficient staff-to-patient rosters.

MidCentral Health has a total of 86 surgical in-patient beds.

- © Fairfax NZ News