Six elderly patients probable cases at Waitakere Hospital after nurses work in both virus-free and COVID-19 wards
Waitematā DHB says it's apologised to families of patients on the ward and it's planning to change its rosters for nursing staff. It comes after three nurses at the hospital tested positive for the disease. They requested to management that if they worked in the COVID-19 ward that they shouldn't also work in wards that were free of infection. However, their concerns were ignored. As a result, staff worked on the COVID ward one day - which is Wing A in the Muriwai Ward - and then on the Older Adults Rehabilitation Ward, or Wing B, the next day. Now six elderly patients in the previously virus-free ward are considered probable cases. Chief medical officer for Waitematā DHB Dr Jonathan Christiansen says there are plans to care for these patients. "They will be managed in strict isolation on the presumption they have COVID," Dr Christiansen says.
The DHB says it had regional clinical backing that such a rostering system was safe, but it's now changing its policy so nurses working on the COVID ward work exclusively there. Auckland University Associate Professor Mark Thomas is an infectious diseases physician at Auckland Hospital and says he's not aware of what type of pressures managers at Waitakere could have been under, but it's clear the DHB's original policy was problematic. "I can imagine the sort of things that might have led them to make that decision, but it was obviously an unfortunate decision, and so yes it's proven to be wrong," Thomas says. Capital and Coast and Hutt DHBs say staff who care for COVID-19 patients "are not involved in the care of non-COVID cases". Thomas says the Health Ministry should have set advice for all hospitals. "Over many years the Ministry of Health has tended to run down a lot of its abilities to deal with this sort of situation and hasn't put as much effort into supporting public health." The Waitematā DHB says it's called the affected families on the previously virus-free ward. "All those calls to families were made to explain the situation and to apologise that their loved ones were put in that situation," Dr Christiansen says. But at this point, there has been no apology for putting staff in that situation, something that NZ Nurses Organisation president Kerri Nuku believes should happen. "Staff deserve an apology from the management and we need to see there are constructive ways moving forward. That it's not just lip service but action in the right direction," Nuku says.Dr Christiansen s ays "it's disappointing" staff haven't raised issues with him or other management. But nurses have told they raised concerns with their managers over many weeks.
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Poll: Should drivers retake the theory test every 10 years?
Drivers get where they need to go, but sometimes it seems that we are all abiding by different road rules (for example, the varying ways drivers indicate around a roundabout).
Do you think drivers should be required to take a quick driving theory test every 10 years?
Vote in the poll and share any road rules that you've seen bent! 😱
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49.5% Yes
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48.6% No
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1.9% Other - I'll share below
Here's Thursday's thinker!
I am lighter than air, but a hundred people cannot lift me. What am I?
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Why make picking up reserved library books harder? What do you think? Challenge: Write the last stanza for the first poem attached below.
Once books are reserved in Auckland Libraries books, when they are available no longer go alphabetically by customer but instead go into a Holds pickup shelf number based presumably somehow on when each book needs to be picked up by.
I had two books reserved that arrived on two different days in the Blockhouse Bay Library and hence each book has a different shelf number. Hard to find unless you knew the shelf number in the notification email. Even if you knew the shelf number I found myself three books by the same author on the two shelf numbers.
More recently yesterday a book I reserved was on a different shelf number than was specified in my notification email (see image below).
Sadly it is clear from library staff that a numerical system for reserves is here to stay.
I suggest that so that all books for each person has the same shelf number, the shelf number becomes the last digit of a person's library card (0-9).
Within each shelf number a book is found under the day the reserve arrives in the library (01 to 31, hopefully the same date the email is sent).
Since a customer appears to have 10 days to pick up a book, ten days of the month would appear to be required at any time (for each digit 0-9).
Once there are 10 days used the next day's reserves could go back at the beginning of the shelf number after any remaining books not collected (hopefully none) are removed (along with the old day number and the new day number (01 to 31) inserted) after the last day available and future days' books remaining moved forward to make room.
Each day number (01-31) would appear once for each shelf number (0-9) before the first book on that day- perhaps cover an old withdrawn book with paper with each day number on the spine?
When a reserved book arrives in the library the last digit of the library card could be placed on a piece of paper in the book to be removed when it is put on the shelf, to be recycled the next day.
What do you think?
See the image below and page 3 below for a letter appearing in the Western Leader on 9 September:
www.neighbourly.co.nz...
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