Akaroa ‘needs more nurses’

Press, 16 April 1982, Page 9

Akaroa ‘needs more nurses’

Plans to expand the services of Akaroa Hospital from maternity to general hospital care have encountered staffing problems.

The health services committee of the North Canterbury Hospital Board has been told that there were not enough nursing staff at Akaroa to handle a combination of maternity and general hospital'care. Under the regulations, a nurse who attended a patient with a notifiable disease, for example, could not attend a maternity patient. . There were several other similar restrictions, the' committee was told. The board’s chief nurse, Miss Brenda Brankin, said that there was a clear need for more nurses. The committee’s chairman, Mrs L. C. Gardiner, said that the board’s administration should investigate the implications of the matter and see if it would be possible to have more staff at Akaroa to enable it to become a general hospital. The hospital’s present complement of nursing staff is one charge nurse, one staff nurse, and two hospital aids. The proposal to turn the maternity hospital into a general hospital is a joint project between the Akaroa County Council and the Hospital Board's works department.

Work on the project is expected to begin next week; when the County Council will start building a ramp to

enable access to the doctor’s surgery at the hospital, and the board’s works department will carry out other alterations within the hospital. Akaroa is one of the five country hospitals in the board’s area intended for greateruse.