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Sarah Dalton: Association of Salaried Medical Specialists Executive Director on the report showing emergency departments are in crisis · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: The union representing senior doctors and dentists in New Zealand
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: says a record 1.4 million patients turned up at ED
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: last year. Admissions up 21% over the last decade. They
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: want more money for health because they say they're struggling
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: to keep up. Sarah Dalton, the Association of Salaried Medical
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: Specialists with me this morning. Sarah, good morning.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: Good morning.
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: How are you? Very well, thank you. So this is
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: an increase of, what, 2% increase in admissions per year,
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: and cumulatively we're 21%, over 21% over the past decade.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: What's driving that increase?
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so this is a report that the College of
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: Emergency Medicine have put out. They're the college who... emergency
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: doctors belong to, it is a really great report because
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: what it shows is that more people are turning up
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: to EDs. The people who are turning up to EDs
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: are more likely to be older, to have complex conditions
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: and be more difficult to treat. It also shows that
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: the rate of people presenting at EDs is increasing way
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: faster than population growth. it's a real problem. And it's
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: also showing that 8% nationally of patients on average who
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: turn up at EDs looking for care actually leave before
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: they're able to be treated. And that's not showing up
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: in the government statistics.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: Which is a problem. And you're saying more money will
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: help address the issues. But we've had a 100% increase
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: in vote health over the last decade, way above what
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: we've seen in terms of population and in terms of
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: admissions to EDs. So what gives?
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: Well, that's not what this report tells us. This report
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: tells us that while on the surface funding has increased,
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: when you look at the complexity of the need for
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: hospital care, the complexity of people who are showing up,
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: the percentage of increase of hospital admissions and presentations to
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: ED against population growth increases. it is not actually keeping
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: pace with the real level of need. And it's also
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: showing that while New Zealand's spending on average 7.4% of
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: its GDP on health between 2023 and 2025, that is
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: still less than the OECD average of some other countries
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: to ours who are spending an average of 7.7%. So
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: that's a gap of more than a billion dollars a year.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: OK, Sarah, just very quickly, when you say complex, do
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: you mean old and potentially obese, like the comorbidities?
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: I'm not talking about obesity necessarily, but someone who has
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: more than one condition. You should probably talk to a
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: doctor about that. But, you know, the other interesting thing
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: that this report does is it suggests that the government's
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: own staff, length of stay target for EDs isn't quite
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: sharp enough, they've developed a better one.
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: Wouldn't it be a smart thing to know what the
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: complex issues are before we start asking for money?
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: No, absolutely not. So what it's saying is there's a
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: range of things, right? So it could be diabetes. It
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: could be obesity. It could be arthritis, rheumatism. It could
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: be a respiratory disease. It could be a combination of
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: those things. So that's something you should be getting clinicians
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: to chat to you about.
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: Sarah Dalton, good to have you on the show this morning,
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: Association of Salaried Medical Specialists.
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: For more from Early Edition with Ryan Bridge, listen live
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: to News Talk ZB from 5 a.m.
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: Weekdays or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.