Sarah Dalton: Association of Salaried Medical Specialists spokesperson on North Shore Hospital's ward of people there for no reason

Auckland's North Shore Hospital has a 20-bed ward full of people, with no medical reason to be there.

It was created in May for medically discharged patients who still require lower-level help from places like an aged-care facility, who have nowhere appropriate to go.

Some stay for weeks, looked after by nurses and allied staff such as physiotherapists and social workers.

Sarah Dalton from the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists says it's a sign of the nation's inability to properly resource community-based care.

"We shouldn't just think about hospitals when we think about access to healthcare."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Onto something else altogether. North Shore Hospital, this place has
now got a ward for people who shouldn't be in hospital.
These are people who should be going to age care
or some other lower level care facilities, but they can't.
So the hospital set up a twenty bed ward in May.
Sarah Dalton is the executive director of the Association of
Salary Medical Specialists and with us. Hey, Sarah, Hey, Heather,

(00:20):
how are you doing. I'm very well, thank you. Why
have these people got nowhere to go?

Speaker 2 (00:25):
It's a really good question, isn't it. But I think
it speaks to our failure to properly resource community based
care support in the home, and particularly age residential care.
You know, they're a big part of the health package.
We shouldn't just think about hospitals when we think about
access to healthcare.

Speaker 1 (00:41):
And are these people unable to go there because they
can't afford it or because there's simply no space to
accept them into.

Speaker 2 (00:47):
Look, I don't know about the details of the exact,
you know, those that particular cohort of people, but I
think it's either that they can't afford private aged residential care.
There isn't public aged residential care in place. I mean
probably I don't know if it would be a not,
a achieved or a D, but they would probably be
the grades that we would give the government on their
approach to elder care currently.

Speaker 1 (01:07):
Oh why because not enough funding?

Speaker 2 (01:09):
Yeah? Yeah, absolutely, And of course it's more expensive to
keep people in hospital than it is to care for
them in the community, particularly when they're going to be
worse off health wise by staying in hospital when they're
no longer medically required to be there.

Speaker 1 (01:24):
Now, in some cases these people need rehab apparently and
are unable to get what are we talking about. Are
we talking like the people who've hurt their backs or
people with strokes or what.

Speaker 2 (01:35):
Yeah. Also, if you've been in hospital in a hospital
bed for a long time, particularly if you're older, you
just need help getting mobile again. So rehab can be.
It's occupational therapy, it's physiotherapy. It's making sure you can
safely move about in your normal day to day environment.
You can dress yourself, you can feed yourself. You know,
you're doing the exercises that you need to do if
you've had an operation and you need to be back

(01:56):
and going again.

Speaker 1 (01:57):
Now, the problem is this is obviously only been around
since May, right, so We're only a few months into it,
but I would say that this is probably more likely
to be permanent than temporary.

Speaker 2 (02:07):
What do you think I fear that that is the case.
I mean, I think it's also ironic that I believe
that they are in Torturda hoo Maty, which was the
new hospital build, which was supposed to be the flagship
elective services hospital building in Auckland, where you know, the
elective surgical flow could be pushed through for the region,
and now it's already full of a ward full of

(02:29):
patients who not only don't need an operation, but they
don't need to be in hospital. So I just think
it really speaks to where the government needs to look
more holistically at our health system. These people won't be
captured by any of the targets that are currently dominating
the government's thinking about healthcare either.

Speaker 1 (02:47):
Yeah. I mean what you need is a minister like
Erica Stanford. Don't you come in and change things up?

Speaker 2 (02:53):
Well, we absolutely need to have some better conversations and
some reasons to go with because there's lots of people
out there that know what are the best things for
these people. The clinicians know what they need. In many cases,
there aren't the clinicians in place, There aunt the facilities
in place. We really need to look to this, particularly
in a large urban setting. You can understand it maybe
happening in a smaller rural or regional area, but in

(03:16):
our largest city it's ridiculous.

Speaker 1 (03:17):
Yeah, Sarah, thanks very much, appreciate it. Sarah Dulton, Association
of Salary Medical Specialists, executive Director. She won't, she won't
going to go there. Ah, she know you can't be
saying that, And the next minute golden balls, your health
minister turns up and goes up. You picked derekas and Nah.
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(03:39):
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