Health New Zealand Te Whatu Ora (HNZ) has apologised after a pregnant woman in significant pain had to wait for more than six hours for treatment at Dunedin Hospital\u2019s emergency department.<\/p>\n
The Dunedin woman\u2019s partner, who declined to be named, said the issue was not about the quality of treatment, but the exhausting waiting time and lack of communication.<\/p>\n
“Something has to change. It\u2019s just not good enough, because I have no complaints about how they managed the procedures. Really, truly.”<\/p>\n
HNZ Southern acting group director of operations Simon Donlevy formally apologised.<\/p>\n
“We are sorry for the upset and distress this patient experienced during her visit to the Dunedin Hospital emergency department.<\/p>\n
“We have launched an investigation into her experience in Dunedin Hospital\u2019s emergency department and in the meantime we are happy to meet her to discuss her experience in the ED.”<\/p>\n
The man said the situation arose about two weeks ago when his partner, who was pregnant, began experiencing severe pain, prompting a visit to the GP.<\/p>\n
“The GP did her checks and she expected either a burst appendix or gallstones, or potentially an ectopic pregnancy.<\/p>\n
“However, the GP did not think that ectopic was very likely but it was a risk.”<\/p>\n
The GP sent the pair off to the ED in Dunedin. They arrived there about 11.45am on November 24.<\/p>\n
“She was still in a significant amount of pain but when she was sitting still the pain was OK. It was manageable.<\/p>\n
“We were not sure what to expect.”<\/p>\n
The man said it was not until they had been waiting for five hours that a nurse was able to take a blood test.<\/p>\n
“So blood was taken but all the time we were still waiting.<\/p>\n
“By the time it was 6.30, my partner started getting increased pain. A lot of it. Very severe pain. And that\u2019s when I went back to the triage desk to say \u2018hey I\u2019m not sure [what to do] but she\u2019s now in a lot of pain”\u2019.<\/p>\n
While this was going on, the man heard a “loud thud” in the emergency room \u2014 his partner had fainted in her chair and was knocked out because of the pain.<\/p>\n
“I ran towards her, kept her head up, and for a good 30 seconds, I actually thought she was dead.<\/p>\n
“She was completely white and unresponsive.<\/p>\n
“That did get the attention from the ED and the doctors \u2014 instantly, two doctors came. First thing they checked was if she was breathing and if there was a heartbeat.”<\/p>\n
His partner lost two litres of blood from internal bleeding.<\/p>\n
“She also needed a blood transfusion to recover. So in a short amount of time \u2014 about 30 minutes \u2014 I thought I lost my partner but I did lose [my child] in pregnancy \u2014 to be fair it was an ectopic, so it would have never been the chance.”<\/p>\n
The man questioned the sense of leaving a pregnant woman in a waiting room for six hours and 45 minutes without any additional checks.<\/p>\n
“Maybe we haven\u2019t complained enough; maybe we should have spoken up more about the pain.<\/p>\n
“However, also the hospital did say [to us] with her being pregnant and the risk of it being an ectopic she should have got an ultrasound at the very early stage, at the triage.”<\/p>\n
Mr Donlevy said the time that someone spent in ED was complex.<\/p>\n
Patients were assessed and triaged upon arrival and prioritised based on their assessed level of clinical need.<\/p>\n
“This means people assessed with the most urgent clinical needs are seen promptly. However, those with less urgent needs may wait longer to see a doctor or nurse.<\/p>\n
“People can receive treatment \u2014 such as pain relief or X-ray \u2014 while waiting to see a doctor, and support while awaiting transfer or admission.”<\/p>\n
The couple\u2019s story is one of many the\u00a0ODT\u00a0has received about the beleaguered ED, some people complaining of waiting times of more than 12 hours.<\/p>\n
“To be fair, the people that helped us were kind, were great. However, obviously it\u2019s all about the wait time here \u2014 it just took too long,” the woman\u2019s partner said.<\/p>\n
“As soon as you\u2019re out of that waiting room, the New Zealand healthcare is fine.<\/p>\n
“But as long as you\u2019re in the waiting room, it\u2019s like a Third World country.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Health New Zealand Te Whatu Ora (HNZ) has apologised after a pregnant woman in significant pain had to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":180935,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[134,527,111,139,69],"class_list":{"0":"post-180934","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-healthcare","10":"tag-new-zealand","11":"tag-newzealand","12":"tag-nz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180934","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=180934"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180934\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/180935"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=180934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=180934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=180934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}