Aim for healing on long walk
A Dunedin family is about to walk the length of New Zealand for a special cause and for a heartfelt reason. Health reporter Mike Houlahan reports.
WENDY Fraser loved walking: she would do at least one 10km hike every week and had walked the Milford and Routeburn tracks.
But the Dunedin grandmother will not be accompanying her family in a about fortnight when they set out to walk the length of New Zealand along the Te Araroa track. Mrs Fraser died in 2019 after a harrowing 17 hours in Dunedin Hospital following a pulmonary embolism.
‘‘She would have loved to have come along to look after the kids. She just loved the kids to bits,’’ her daughter Tania Henwood said.
‘‘She would have also loved to have had an adventure with me, and I also imagine that she would join me for bits of it and would have been very keen to see how she would play a part.’’
Mrs Fraser was nothing if not intrepid. She once travelled from Balclutha to Piano Flat, where the Henwoods were camping, in the rain, to deliver them a pavlova.
However, Mrs Fraser’s indomitable spirit was doused after a series of missteps, misapprehensions and misunderstandings meant that Dunedin Hospital clinicians opted to wait and see whether her condition might improve, rather than immediately start the thrombolysis treatment that might have saved her.
How her doctors mishandled Mrs Fraser’s case was the subject of a stern report from the Health and Disability
Commissioner released earlier this year, and legal action against the former Southern District Health Board concerning how its processes and procedures failed Mrs Fraser is imminent.
The former board offered a full apology to Mrs Fraser’s family and vowed to immediately improve its systems.
Mrs Henwood was at Mrs Fraser’s bedside and it was she who pushed the alarm bell when she noticed that her mother had fallen into her final unconsciousness.
‘‘She had just said ‘it’s not working’, referring to the opiate they had given her, and then her eyes rolled back in her head, her jaw clenched and she arrested.
‘‘Her body just couldn’t fight any longer.’’
Being so close and unable to help was traumatic for Mrs Henwood, a former intensive care nurse.
As the numbness of grief wore off and recognition of the unfortunate chain of events which led up to Mrs Fraser’s death emerged, Mrs Henwood resolved to find a way for her mother’s death to help others.
The HDC report depicted a cloud of confusion around Mrs Fraser’s bedside, as doctors failed to assess her condition accurately and were unable to clearly pass on vital information to colleagues starting a new shift.
‘‘There were obvious signs that Mum was deteriorating . . . and I knew that there [were] missed opportunities there,’’ Mrs Henwood said.
Through the investigation Mrs Henwood discovered Korero Mai, an initiative piloted at Waitemata DHB for a patient, family and whanauled escalation system for deteriorating patients.
Essentially, doctors and nurses there decided to try putting into their practice the adage that family knows best, and allow a person’s loved ones a role in monitoring their wellbeing.
The Health Quality and Safety Commission assessed the Waitemata DHB and other followup pilots, and the HDC ultimately recommended that the SDHB consider its findings and whether implementing Korero Mai could improve patient care.
For Mrs Henwood, Korero Mai offers the chance to clear the fog away from the ward and allow for clear communication and effective care.
When she, husband Jason and their children Briar and Nikita leave from Cape Reinga, they will be spending six months as ambassadors for Korero Mai, stopping at every hospital along their route to give their own, intensely personal perspective on how patient care could be improved.
‘‘It has taken a good couple of years to get to this point, and I was pretty angry initially,’’ Mrs