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Download AudioIn what may be the ultimate hospital pass, Counties Manukau DHB chief medical officer Dr Andrew Connolly has been appointed to head a special task force to tackle delays in hospital waiting lists caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.
The task force has until September to deliver a plan, and Dr Connolly says the new Māori Health Authority will be a critical part of that plan, as unequal treatment of Māori and Pasifika patients is one of the things contributing to waiting lists.
The problem is not just how long people wait for treatment but what happens when they first come into the health system.
“Now that means we have to look at how long did it take someone to get to their GP or do they have a GP in the first place. They may have gone to A&E clinics to get healthcare, maybe multiple A&E clinics, and we don’t have a system that tells us that as effectively as it needs to so we need to factor in if someone has gone five times to A&E, we need to speed up their time to see someone like me or one of my colleagues in the clinic,” Dr Connolly says.
He says waiting lists need to be seen as a whole system problem rather than someone else’s problem.
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