Warned of longer ED wait­ing times

Otago Daily Times

GERRIT DOPPENBERG

20 Jun 2026

Gore Hospital

GORE Health is warn­ing patients to expect longer wait­ing times as its emer­gency depart­ment deals with record num­bers. Last month, 1004 people were seen at Gore Hos­pital’s emer­gency depart­ment, set­ting a record num­ber for the hos­pital, and far above the 876 seen in the pre­vi­ous month.

CEO Karl Met­z­ler said the increase was a symp­tom of the times brought about by a mul­ti­tude of cas­cad­ing issues.

‘‘For a num­ber of years now we’ve talked about the age­ing pop­u­la­tion [and] the pres­sure that’s going to come with that. ‘‘That often comes with a lot of com­plex and comor­bid health issues.

‘‘We’ve talked about the need for the gov­ern­ment to fill the work­force pipeline in a more meas­ured, stra­tegic way.’’

The cost of liv­ing was another con­trib­ut­ing factor, he said.

‘‘Often it’s very costly to seek health in primary care.’’ Mr Met­z­ler said it was ‘‘extremely for­tu­nate’’ Gore Hos­pital was fully staffed but it was still ‘‘woe­fully under­fun­ded for the ser­vice we’re expec­ted to provide’’, adding there was a lot of pres­sure on staff on the front lines.

‘‘I need our com­munity to be just a bit more patient and under­stand­ing if they have a longer wait time, because the volumes are sig­ni­fic­antly increased,’’ he said. Mr Meztler said when he star­ted work­ing at the hos­pital about 15 years ago, 70% of emer­gency depart­ment present­a­tions were acci­dent or injury related.

Now it was a 50/50 split with med­ical issues, due to older and sicker patients need­ing med­ical atten­tion, he said.

Mr Met­z­ler said patients were not turn­ing up for ‘‘flip­pant reas­ons’’, adding the the people of East­ern South­land were ‘‘very good and very astute’’ at judging when to go to hos­pital. ‘‘I think our com­munity should be com­men­ded; they don’t mis­use or over­use the ED. The people who present here genu­inely are need­ing acute care.

‘‘I don’t want to sow doubt in people’s minds when they’re unwell . . . you should always seek med­ical assist­ance or advice if you need it. If in doubt, come in, but just be aware of the poten­tial wait times with the volume com­ing through.’’