Court bid for visit to death-bed

The son of a dying man took emergency court action against health authorities so he could spend one last day with his terminally ill father.

Stuff understands the emergency court action allowed Oliver Christiansen to spend just over 24 hours with his father, retired associate High Court judge Tony Christiansen, before the older man died of a brain tumour.

Oliver Christiansen’s lawyer, Simon Foote, QC, said while the judge’s ruling allowed Christiansen to leave the 14-day mandatory isolation for overseas arrivals early, he hoped authorities would exercise their discretion in the future. ‘‘Something went awry in the Ministry of Health. No doubt they’re under huge pressure and in large part, they’re doing a great job in trying to keep us all safe, but they seem to have misunderstood the discretion they have.’’

Oliver Christiansen lives in London and flew to New Zealand on April 23 because his father was terminally ill and in palliative care at home. At that stage, the medical advice was that his father had weeks to live and Christiansen would still be able to say goodbye, once Christiansen completed his mandatory 14 days in selfisolation at an inner-city Auckland hotel.

However, the following day, medical specialists revised his father’s likely life expectancy to between one and three days.

Christiansen’s repeated requests for the ministry to use its discretion to allow him to visit his father were declined. He told authorities his father had started asking ‘‘Where is my boy, where is my boy?’’.

Justice Tracey Walker heard the case on Friday and allowed Christiansen to visit his father.

She found the authorities had interpreted the rules narrowly, based on the criteria available on the Government’s Covid-19 website, and had failed to use their powers of discretion.

Justice Walker ordered Christiansen, who had no symptoms of Covid-19, to travel by private car and wear full PPE while visiting his father.