Hospital eye clinics strained by lack of staff, facilities

Press, 16 January 1986, Page 7

Hospital eye clinics strained by lack of staff, facilities

Waiting lists for Christchurch Hospital’s eye clinic have shortened, but the waiting time has almost trebled in the last five years.

A member of the Canterbury Hospital Board, Mr Tom McGuigan, told the health services committee yesterday that he could not understand why the waiting time had increased when the numbers on the list had descreased.

In 1980, the waiting list was 13 weeks, compared with 11 months now. In 1980, the ophthalmology outpatients department had been seeing 10,000 patients, and that had dropped by 800.

The board's medical superintendent-in-chief, Dr Ross Fairgray, said that the number of people being seen at the clinic had been deliberately reduced because of complaints that people were

being rushed through.

“In an effort to maintain reasonable standards, the numbers were reduced,” he said.

If there were extra staff, there would be extra clinics held, but opththalmologists were extremely hard to find at the moment.

The board had provision for six full-time positions, but had only five occupied. It had advertised at least three times for another specialist, but had made no appointments. Dr Fairgray said the specialists working in the outpatients clinics were extremely busy now. The average number of patients seen in a three-hour clinic was 30.

The medical superintendent of Christchurch Hospital, Dr David Andrews, said that even if there were more clinics, there were not

enough operating theatres to take the load for the eye surgery necessary for some patients, who would still face a long wait even if they got to the clinic earlier.

Applications had been made for more theatres for the stage 111 redevelopment, but had been turned down.

The hospital’s theatres were working 90 per cent of the time now, which was extremely busy compared with other hospitals.

Mr John Davidson, a surgeon with the board, said that, in the private sector, opthtalmologists were being inundated with referrals from other parts of the South Island.

“I don’t believe that any of them would be in a position to take up the work,” he said.