Health New Zealand has denied imposing a hiring freeze and said an issue affecting Canterbury’s recruitment of replacement staff had been corrected after being raised last week.

The response followed claims from a Christchurch Hospital senior clinician that nursing leaders were told approvals to replace vacant nurses would be suspended because of budget constraints.

Health New Zealand Executive Regional Director South Island Pete Watson said the organisation became aware of the recruitment issue last week.

“As soon as this was raised, steps were taken to address and correct this issue, and it has now been resolved,” Watson said.

“For the avoidance of doubt, there is no hiring freeze at Health New Zealand. We are actively recruiting staff across New Zealand and overseas.

“Recruitment decisions are made based on service need, workforce availability and patient safety.”

Watson did not provide details about the nature of the issue or whether any replacement applications had been delayed or declined.

The senior clinician told chrislynchmedia.com that charge nurses, nurse managers and nursing directors were advised of the restriction during the week of 14 to 20 September.

They said it covered funded positions left vacant when nurses resigned, retired or reduced their working hours.

“In effect, we have been told that a hiring freeze is being implemented and that vacancies in nursing positions will not be approved.”

The clinician said managers were also told to hold approvals for annual leave and education leave until at least Christmas to maintain staffing levels.

They said the announcement followed an exceptionally difficult winter, with Christchurch Hospital allegedly operating at more than 100 percent of its resourced nursing capacity for the previous three months.

Numerous wards had been unable to maintain their funded staffing levels during the past year, the clinician said.

“My ward has been short staffed by three to four nurses every month for the past year as a result of these approval and recruitment delays.”

Approval to recruit a replacement could already take up to three months, followed by another month for advertising, interviews and job offers.

Once notice periods and staff orientation were included, the clinician estimated it could take five to six months or longer to replace a departing staff member.

“These delays have contributed to chronic understaffing across many wards and clinical areas.”

A New Zealand Nurses Organisation delegate at Christchurch Hospital said the account was consistent with staffing pressures they had experienced.

“When we have shortages, it is not about how we get back to a good number of staff. We just shovel the resources around until we get something that vaguely works.”

The delegate said nurses were regularly moved to cover shortages in other clinical areas because there was no budget to provide permanent replacements.

A nurse educator position in their area had remained vacant for at least eight months, leaving the manager responsible for staff training and competency assessments alongside their existing duties.

“We have not had someone to do additional training with us or sign off our competencies,” the delegate said.

“That has all been given to the manager, who is now essentially doing two jobs instead of one.”

Staffing gaps were also placing junior nurses in positions carrying significant clinical responsibility.

“I’ve had nights when, due to illness, I was the most senior person on the ward, which is terrifying,” the delegate said.

“Because I was the most senior person, I was then allocated as the person in charge of the ward.”

The delegate said duty nurse managers tried to provide experienced support but were forced to distribute limited staff across multiple areas.

The shortages were also affecting where patients received care.

“We are seeing a lot of people coming in sicker who are being moved to areas that do not have those specialties,” the delegate said.

They said some wards were caring for patients from six or seven other specialties simply to ensure people had a bed.

The reported recruitment issue raised questions about Government changes promoted as making hospital hiring faster and more responsive.

On 17 March, Health Minister Simeon Brown announced that Health New Zealand regions and districts would receive greater authority over workforce decisions and budgets from 1 July.

Brown said hospitals would be able to recruit and deploy staff without central approval, reducing delays when demand increased.

On the same day, Brown announced a $25 million winter package containing up to 378 additional full time equivalent positions nationally and 20 additional beds at Christchurch Hospital.

In July, Brown said Health New Zealand intended to offer about 1800 graduate nursing roles during the following 12 months.

The NZNO delegate said some nursing graduates were waiting up to a year to secure employment despite wards continuing to report shortages.