Another ED in crisis

The Herald reports:

In a stark illustration of how acute services across the country are struggling to cope with crippling staff shortages, Palmerston North Hospital’s emergency department is so understaffed that on six occasions in the past few weeks, it had no junior doctors rostered overnight, according to internal documents. …

On one recent weekend, 14 patients each spent more than 24 hours “sitting in chairs in our ED waiting room” waiting to be admitted to the hospital.

I remind people that prior to this Government, almost 95% of ED patients were seen within six hours. Now you have people waiting 24 hours to be admitted.