Palmerston North Hospital, Manawatū. Photo: Jimmy Ellingham, RNZ
Health NZ says the hiring of three senior doctors will ease the pressure on the cardiology clinic at Palmerston North Hospital.
But a patient advocacy group says there are still concerns about the number of people being forced onto waiting lists.
Patient Voice Aotearoa's Malcolm Mulholland raised concerns about the clinic when it recently turned down a referral for a check-up ultrasound for a man who had had a triple heart bypass.
Health NZ group director of operations for MidCentral Sarah Fenwick said officials accepted there was a period of "reduced clinic capacity, due to workforce constraints from March 2024 to March 2025".
"This has now been resolved through additional staff, including three senior medical officers," she said. "During the reduced operational period, we were only able to accept referrals that had been triaged and determined by a cardiac specialist as urgent."
Clinic numbers varied from week to week, Fenwick said. Presently there were four to five a week with five appointments each, and the number would increase from May.
Patient Voice Aotearoa's Malcolm Mulholland. Photo: STUFF / David Unwin
"In general, we receive approximately 60 cardiology referrals per week with approximately seven declined each week."
These numbers meant 20-25 patients were seen at the clinic a week, while the rest were put on a waiting list.
Some weeks between March 2024 and March this year that would mean more than 30 people were added to the list, a figure that concerned Mulholland.
"We know that from March 2024 to March 2025 that they are at least 1000 appointments behind. Even with increased capacity in cardiology there's still some backlog to get rid of, over and above trying to keep up with the demand that they face."
Palmerston North Hospital had recently advised patients who were scheduled for surveillance colonoscopies there that the service was paused due to pressure on the gastro clinic, although it had started doing some procedures.
Mulholland said cardiology patients deserved the same level of transparency if similar problems were to arise.
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