Tararua Health can deliver safe services to the community, director insists

Tararua Health Group can deliver safe health services to the community, despite a critical audit from the Ministry of Health, says its director.A Ministry of Health spokesperson said the inspection report was currently being written and will contain details of issues that were identified.Tararua Health director Mark Wills told Checkpoint the hospital was one and a half nurses short, and did not have sufficient doctor coverage at the time the review was issued.He said one doctor left, and cover had been arranged by a doctor who was on the day shift and also agreed to be on-call for the night shift - but auditing staff found that was not suitable.Wills said he did not believe staffing levels were unsafe before the audit was announced."We weren't aware that they were considered to be unsafe staff levels - we had a view that we had sufficient nursing staff and that we were recruiting additional nursing staff."We're not arguing with their view, but that is their view."He said he had taken the feedback on board and had now appointed more nurses.Tararua Health Group also owns Pahīatua Medical centre, where half a dozen staff have tendered resignations over workload and safety concerns.Wills said the difficulties did not reflect a pattern of behaviour, but it was very hard to recruit."If there are people out there who want to actually join the Pahīatua Medical Centre and contribute towards serving that community we would be very grateful for their interest."When asked why so many staff had left, Wills said there were "lessons to be learned for everyone"."Obviously some of those staff have left for sound reasons, where they're moving out of the territory or retiring or whatever, but I think we'd also admit that there's some that have left that we would have rather not lost."Wills is also the founder and chief executive of OmniHealth, which is the parent company for Tararua Health Group.That company also owns Taitoko Health clinic in Levin, where the last GP serving at the clinic has resigned.He was asked whether OmniHealth was the problem, and whether it was running the staff too leanly for commercial reasons."No, certainly not, I would refute that vehemently - there's an absolute need for more staff in our sector and we are continually hunting for staff. I have heard recently that 60 percent of the general practices in New Zealand are looking for GPs right now."On the audit, a Ministry of Health spokesperson said: "We understand that Health NZ is focused on ensuring continuity of care for the community, and as the regulator, the Ministry's focus continues to be ensuring that care provided is safe."