Heart Patients’ Wait Near End

By NO BYLINE

MORE than 800 heart patients who have been waiting for more than six months for tests and assessments will get their appointments this year through a deal between the MidCentral District Health Board and Southern Cross Hospital.

The services will be funded from a $2.5-million health board budget surplus that has been allocated to a blitzing of the waiting lists for elective services.

Project manager Tracey Schiebli said yesterday the contract will see the cardiology tests carried out at Southern Cross Hospital in association with Wellington’s Wakefield Hospital.

Most patients will be seen in Palmerston North, but some will be referred to Wakefield for specialist procedures.

About 350 patients will get their first specialist assessments, along with ECG, treadmill exercise, 24-hour Holter monitoring or echocardiography tests. The project will also cover angiograms or angioplasty for patients needing them. A further 500 patients waiting for diagnostic tests will also be seen.

Internal medicine group manager Lindsey Bates said the clearing of the backlog will coincide with a major review designed to boost the capacity of Palmerston North Hospital’s cardiology services.

Two new cardiologists recently accepted job offers. One will arrive next week and the other next month.

Ms Bates said the appointments represent a great advance at a time when recruiting medical specialists is difficult throughout New Zealand.

“The new appointments, in conjunction with the review and the catch-up project, give us a good platform from which to build, and an optimistic outlook for the future of the service,” she said.