Canty heart patients ‘will be worst off'

Press, 25 January 1986, Page 2

Canty heart patients ‘will be worst off'

Canterbury patients waiting for heart surgery will remain worse off than those elsewhere in New Zealand according to a Christchurch cardiologist yesterday. Dr David Hay was commenting on the fact that Dunedin’s cardiac surgery unit, where most Canterbury patients went for surgery, could manage only two operations a week, because of a nurse shortage. The acting head of the unit, Mr Jeffrey Feint, said yesterday that nurses were on holiday and there was also a general shortage, so the unit’s third

surgeon, who started work this week, could not work as expected. Patients booked for cardiac surgery next month would not have firm dates, and some would get only three days notice of their surgery.

Mr Feint cited a case where one Christchurch patient had now been put off thrice. The unit was not expected •to extend its operations until the end of February, when new staff would start work.

Dr Hay said there was little hope for a unit in Christchurch until the Dunedin unit was working to capacity.

Most of Dunedin’s patients came from the Canterbury area, he said. The latest figures from the cardiac register showed that, of the 183 operations performed

there, 107 came from Canterbury. The private cardiac surgery unit in Auckland also had more patients from Canterbury than from anywhere else in New Zealand,* he said.

Dr Hay said there were problems in the cardiac surgery units in public hospitals at Auckland and Wellington, as well as in Dunedin. “It all boils down to money. There does not seem to be the money in the kitty to cope with the various demands on the health services, whether we are talking about cardiac surgery or medical technology.” Dr Hay said although three Canterbury persons on Dunedin’s waiting list had died, the number of deaths while on the waiting list had dropped from last year.