Surgeons favouring ‘private patients’

Press, 2 June 1989, Page 10

Surgeons favouring ‘private patients’

PA Auckland Some surgeons are giving priority to their private patients at the expense of the public health system, says the New Zealand Nurses’ Association.

The association’s professional officer, Ms Joy Bickley, said public hospital patients were staying longer than necessary and surgery was being delayed because surgeons had private commitments. Surgeons had a right to work in both the public and private hospital systems, but “if they are contracted (to public hospitals), they have an obligation to attend,” she said.

The criticism comes in the wake of an Audit Office report calling for better organisation of public hospital workloads, the possible employment of more registrars and greater accuracy in waiting lists. An ear, nose and throat surgeon, Mr Henry Glennie, said giving preferential treatment to private patients was a small problem, compared with the low productivity of senior consultants and poor theatre organisation. “Some senior specialists in Auckland Area Health Board institutions on salaries are not doing the amount of work that can be fairly expected of them.

“Some do not do anything, feeling what they have done 10 years ago is sufficient to tide them over. They actually block younger people from working in public hospitals.

“They are late for theatre lists, and leave registrars to do the lists on their own, which also slows the work,” Mr Glennie said.

Mr David Wills, director of a separate nursing group, the New Zealand Nurses’ Society, said alle-

gations of putting private practice first were often levelled against surgeons but he did not believe it was a big factor in hospital efficiency problems. When waiting lists peaked two or three years ago, the shortage of nurses was the main reason.

The Minister of Health, Ms Clark; has been urged to set up a commission to look at the employment of junior doctors in hospitals, after the Audit Office report.

The Resident Medical Officers’ Association’s industrial advocate, Mr Terry Powell, said most house surgeons worked more than the 72 hours a week, 16-hour day maximum agreed to in 1985. “This limit was agreed in the interests of patient safety and the welfare of resident medical officers,” he said. “Hospital boards ignore it. At Auckland Hospital this week, a registrar working in neurosurgery was asked to work from 8 a.m. on Monday to 6.30 a.m. on Tuesday and then come back for another stint at 8 a.m. the same day. “If they refused, they would be nobodies. All we can do is try to make them claim for the extra hours.

“The Minister should set up a commission to look at conditions of employment. It is not just in our interest, but the patients’.”

Ms Clark has said she hoped hospitals and area health boards would respond to the Audit Office report and implement its recommendations where possible.