13 Jun 2019

No senior doctors on overnight

From The Panel, 4:46 pm on 13 June 2019

Almost 90 percent of maternity wards in New Zealand have no senior doctors or consultants on site at night, the NZ Herald reports.

Most hospitals will have on call specialists to come and help with complex births but on call help may well be 30 minutes away, a delay that in difficult cases is a matter of life or death.

The panellists discuss if we need more focus on patient care outside normal work hours.