An increase in medical specialists at Marlborough’s Urgent Care Centre will help ease pressure on the region’s acute health systems.
From the end of October, the Blenheim based centre will have a doctor onsite seven days a week.
The multidisciplinary team will again be boosted by the arrival of a third extended care paramedic in March 2027 and an additional full-time doctor in April 2027.
Urgent Care Centre Medical Director Dr Jordan Gibbs says the move will have a positive effect for patients, staff and Wairau Hospital’s Emergency Department.
Senior ED doctors recently went public, warning they were struggling, sometimes seeing more than 100 patients a day.
The Emergency Department should have 11.4 full-time doctors but currently has 8, forcing them to rely on locums.
“The link between us all is a very symbiotic eco-system and if one part struggles, then we all do,” Jordan says.
"We have huge respect for our colleagues in ED and value our strong relationship. We meet regularly and are actively planning how we can smooth the workflow in both directions.
“That means lower-acuity patients, such as people with minor sprains, come to us, and patients with more serious needs go to ED."
A GP with Springlands Health, Jordan took on the role of Medical Director in July. Five years prior to that she worked as a doctor in Wairau Hospital’s busy Emergency Department.
Latest figures show that in the last three months 69.8 per cent of patients presenting to urgent care were seen by a doctor or extended care paramedic within an hour.
“The trajectory, where wait times are getting shorter, is astronomically positive,” Jordan says.
Marlborough Primary Health Chief Executive Beth Tester has overseen a strategic, gradual restructure of staffing over the past 18 months.
She says they have now built a multidisciplinary team of urgent care specialists. "These are highly trained healthcare workers who can dispense medicines under standing orders and order lab tests, swabs and x-rays.
"Extended care paramedics and urgent care nurses provide acute and complex medical care.
“They can stabilise seriously unwell patients and provide advanced life support, which takes pressure off the Emergency Department at Wairau Hospital."
Jordan, who was mentoring a new doctor from Canada on Monday, says there are always options for patients. Cost should never be a barrier, she added.
“I got into this to help people, and finance is the tricky part. No one should delay in getting help because they are worried about money.”
Marlborough residents can see a doctor through their own GP practice, through Practice Plus after hours, on weekends and on public holidays (you don't need to be enrolled with a GP to use it), or at the Urgent Care Centre.
“We work closely with GPs about what appointments are available. “There’s a long-standing myth that we have no GPs in Marlborough and that you have to wait six weeks to see one; neither is true.
“People assume it’s bad and don’t even try [to get an appointment] but we can help with that. I think we’ve got a fantastic staff here with a really broad skill set.
“More often than not, it’s about getting a patient back to their practice. For people with chronic, complex problems, the best person to see them is the person who knows them best.”
The Urgent Care Centre is open from 8am to 8pm, seven days a week.