Hospital Gears Up for Full House

The house full sign is expected to go up at Waikato Hospital this weekend with patient occupancy tipped to go five per cent above official capacity.

Already there have been major disruptions to elective surgeries at the hospital with the number of acute admissions climbing yesterday morning, group manager Hayley McConnell said.

Staff opened more beds but projections for the weekend showed no let-up in comparison to average occupancy over a weekend.

A memo sent yesterday alerted accident and medical centres, rest homes and all Midland and Waikato DHB hospitals to the situation.

Waikato Hospital’s adult and children’s ward capacity is 484 beds.

“Normal weekend occupancy is below 95 per cent,” said Ms McConnell.

“By midday (on Friday) occupancy forecast was 105 per cent.”

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