Hospital IMT disbanded, but some visitor restrictions remain

5 August 2021

Taranaki DHB has stood down their hospital Incident Management Team (IMT) following a month of extreme high acuity and patient demand.

Taranaki DHB chief executive Rosemary Clements says although Base and Hāwera hospitals remain busy, acute admissions have returned to a more manageable level and the IMT has been disbanded.

“Currently we are not responding to the same level of critical demand we were experiencing throughout July. For several weeks our IMT were managing very high occupancy in our hospital’s due to acute illness and trauma. With the extra pressure of winter sickness including RSV, colds, viruses and respiratory issues we reached an all-time high level of demand.”

Rosemary confirms there are still several areas of high demand, including Mental Health services and the Paediatric/Children’s Ward which continues to treat a few RSV cases.

“We’re aware RSV continues to circulate in the Taranaki community, we’re still treating children for this virus in our hospitals, so we need to be vigilant with visitor restrictions until at least next week.”

The hospital visitor policy will change slightly to allow more than one visitor again, but people who are unwell are asked to stay away until they’re well enough to visit loved ones, and children aged 12 years and under are still restricted from visiting due to the threat of RSV.

“We know these restrictions can be frustrating for some people, but our priority is to keep our vulnerable patients and staff as healthy as possible.”

Rosemary also acknowledges the incredible amount of work DHB staff have achieved over the past month.

“We have the most amazing health workforce who have continued to provide quality patient care around the clock for the people in our hospitals, or coming into our services, or in the wider community. We are so proud of the huge input our staff have made to keeping our services running during this challenging time.”

Last updated: Thursday, August 5, 2021