{"id":502233,"date":"2026-06-30T06:03:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-30T06:03:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/502233\/"},"modified":"2026-06-30T06:03:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-30T06:03:11","slug":"family-will-rightly-want-answers-about-ed-death-health-minister-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/502233\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Family will rightly want answers’ about ED death \u2013 Health Minister"},"content":{"rendered":"

Health Minister Simeon Brown says his heart goes out to the family and loved ones of a person who died while waiting to be seen at Waikato Hospital this week.<\/p>\n

1News understands a patient died in a toilet at the emergency department of the hospital after waiting more than nine hours to be seen.<\/p>\n

A witness, who was at the hospital shortly after the man was found unconscious by a member of the public, said family were there and were “distraught”.<\/p>\n

It’s understood the man, aged in his mid 50s, had presented at the emergency department at 3.40pm on Monday. <\/p>\n

Police confirmed receiving report of a death at a medical facility on Pembroke St in Hamilton just before 2am today. <\/p>\n

\"Waikato<\/p>\n

Waikato Hospital accident and emergency department entry (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n

Waikato Hospital medical director of medicine Ian Martin told 1News in a statement the patient presented to the emergency department last night and was triaged on arrival.<\/p>\n

“The patient was later found unconscious and efforts to resuscitate them were sadly unsuccessful,” Martin said.<\/p>\n

“An immediate clinical review into the death is underway to identify any immediate actions for improvement. This review will be completed this week.”<\/p>\n

Longer term, Martin said Health New Zealand has commenced a serious adverse event review into the death and also began to “identify any wider learnings for staff”. This review was expected to be completed within two months.<\/p>\n

Martin added Health New Zealand was offering support to the family of the person who had died and the death had also been referred to the Coroner.<\/p>\n

‘Health NZ assures me’ family will get answers \u2013 Health Minister<\/p>\n

In a statement this afternoon, Brown said he had spoken with Health New Zealand, who “will carry out a rapid clinical review” to establish what has happened.<\/p>\n

“The individual’s family will rightly want answers, and Health New Zealand has assured me they will get them.”<\/p>\n

Brown said he would not comment on the specific circumstances of the incident out of respect for the family and so the review could “do its work properly”.<\/p>\n

“I respectfully ask others to do the same,” he said.<\/p>\n

“I have asked to be kept closely informed of the rapid clinical review’s findings, and I have been clear that the family must be supported and kept fully informed every step of the way.<\/p>\n

“My priority is ensuring the family and loved ones are supported at this difficult time, while Health New Zealand carries out its rapid clinical review.”<\/p>\n

1News sought more information from Health New Zealand about how long the patient was waiting and where they were found unconscious, but was told: “While the immediate clinical review and the Serious Adverse Event Review are ongoing we are not in a position to confirm further details.”<\/p>\n

Speaking to reporters in Parliament this afternoon, Brown said “clearly, it’s not good enough”, and it is a “terrible situation”.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a significant amount of work underway across Health New Zealand to ensure that New Zealanders get the timely quality access to healthcare that they need.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a significant amount of work to meet our targets. There has been improvement across the board, there is still more work to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Govt ‘must take this seriously’ \u2013 Hipkins<\/p>\n

\"Labour<\/p>\n

Labour Party leader Chris Hipkins. File photo. (Source: Getty)<\/p>\n

Also questioned at Parliament, Labour Party leader Chris Hipkins said doctors and nurses “have been saying for some time now that the staffing shortages in emergency departments, the shortage of capacity in emergency departments, is a tragedy waiting to happen”.<\/p>\n

“Sadly we have now seen that sort of tragedy take place.”<\/p>\n

Hipkins added his heart also went out to the family and individual.<\/p>\n

“It\u2019s not good enough. The Government have been denying the crisis in hospital emergency departments, despite the fact those people working in those emergency departments are saying the hiring freeze has had an impact, the Government\u2019s spending cuts have had an impact, and they\u2019re asking for better. The Government must take this seriously.”<\/p>\n

PSA: Some patients told to expect to wait 14 hours <\/p>\n

The national secretary of the Public Service Association Te P\u016bkenga Here Tikanga Mahi said no one should be waiting nine hours or more at any emergency department.<\/p>\n

“What happened at Waikato Hospital is a tragedy, and one that should never have happened in a wealthy country like New Zealand,” Fleur Fitzsimons, said.<\/p>\n

“Yesterday, we had reports that wh\u0101nau at the Waikato Hospital ED waited for 10 hours to be seen, with some being told to expect a 14-hour wait.”<\/p>\n

Fitzsimons also expressed condolences to those impacted by the loss. “Our thoughts are with the wh\u0101nau affected by this death, and I hope Minister Simeon Brown is thinking very carefully himself about how his Government can look to stop tragedies like these happening in future.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Health Minister Simeon Brown says his heart goes out to the family and loved ones of a person…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":502234,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[9001,134,527,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-502233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-hamilton-waikato","tag-health","tag-healthcare","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502233","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=502233"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502233\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/502234"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=502233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=502233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=502233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}