[ad_1]
Supplied
The new Te Nikau, Gray Hospital and Health Center in Greymouth.
Shared seating areas at Greymouth’s new Te Nikau Hospital pose a risk to patient confidentiality, the West Coast District Board of Health has heard.
Board member Nigel Ogilvie, director of Westland Medical Center, told the board at its meeting Thursday that he had recently spent a couple of days at Te Nikau with patients.
He had noticed that the nurses and other health personnel were well distributed around the building at lunchtime.
“They were sitting at tables talking and we could hear their conversations, patients could hear them too.
READ MORE:
* West Coast patients are surprised they are charged GP fees after seeking emergency care
* New Greymouth Hospital Almost Ready for Patients
* Plastic sheeting considered ‘adequate’ protection for West Coast hospital staff
“During the day, my worries went from zero to one hundred due to the number of people I heard from,” Ogilvie said.
Many of the reports presented to the board only said good things about Te Nikau, Ogilvie noted.
“It’s lovely to have a lot of positives, but there are some things that need attention.”
Nursing director Brittany Jenkins agreed that there had been challenges around staffing spaces in the new building.
Board member Peter Neame said the problem was proximity.
“The services are too close to the staff areas, that’s quite different from the old hospital.”
Board Chairman Rick Barker said staff must be very careful with confidential information.
“You don’t know who is standing.”
The board also discussed initial issues with patients coming to the reception area for GP appointments and emergency care.
STUFF
Some patients at Greymouth’s new integrated health center have been surprised to be charged GP fees when they thought they were being treated in the emergency department.
There was confusion about where they were supposed to go and there was no clear direction, Ogilvie said.
“There is no sign that says Emergency or Health Center. I stood there for 11 minutes while three members of the reception staff sat behind the desk and talked.”
DHB General Manager Phil Wheble said there was work to be done on that, so that people were greeted as they came in and given information, but the goal was to provide integrated services.
There were too many people in a reception area, according to Neame.
“You don’t want a built-in bottleneck, do you? That’s what you have right now.”
Speaking after the meeting, Wheble said it made sense to have a general reception area for both primary care (GP) and emergency care and that nurses assessed patients, but that people needed clearer instructions on where go.
“Some people have thought that if you have an accident, you automatically go to an emergency, but that is not the case. It is the severity (severity) of your condition that determines whether you are treated in an Emergency, not the fact that you had an accident . “
The department hadn’t been an “accident and emergency” for many years, Wheble said.
“It’s often better to see a GP for an injury, and if it’s an accident, ACC covers it for the cost.”
Emergency care is free, Wheble emphasized.
“But we’ve had a couple of people who haven’t understood this and we haven’t communicated it well enough.”
Board member Tony Kokshoorn said the DHB needed to run an ad campaign to clarify the West Coasters system and that it needed to keep it simple.
