Fourth review of SDHB colonoscopy under way
Canterbury Charity Hospital founder and surgeon Phillip Bagshaw is calling for review of Southern District Health Board management as a fourth review into the board’s colonoscopy services is under way.
‘‘There should be a serious appraisal of senior management through this whole thing,’’ he said.
Southern DHB chief executive Chris Fleming said the new report is being finalised and is expected to be released in the coming weeks.
It follows an internal survey of medical officers in 2017, an independent review released by Bagshaw and Steven Bing in May 2019, and recommendations by former Medical Council chairman Andrew Connolly released in January.
The latter two found that national guidelines were being used to ration specialists’ access to diagnostic colonoscopies and relationships within the department had broken down.
‘‘Neither our review nor Connolly’s review have been recognised,’’ Bagshaw said.
‘‘Scientifically, and ethically, you have to treat symptomatic patients first,’’ he said, arguing that access to colonoscopies was still being strictly controlled.
Six Southern DHB surgeons also wrote to the board in August 2019 saying they were frustrated that national criteria, designed to prioritise referrals from general practitioners, was being applied to their patients.
Fleming said there have been patients referred by specialists and accepted for colonoscopy, who would previously not have been accepted as they do not fit the national guidelines.
Waiting lists had increased as a result, he said.
‘‘The assertion that ‘nothing has changed’ is not correct,’’ Fleming said. ‘‘GI specialists now have certainty that when they refer a patient for colonoscopy that it will be accepted.’’
Southland Charity Hospital founder Melissa Vining addressed the board yesterday on behalf of Southland and Otago patients who had reached out to her for help.
In an emotional statement, Vining said she’d read through board reports from the past five years and said it seemed to be a deliberate board policy to deal with the problem by reducing demand instead of increasing capacity. ‘‘You have assured the public that it was your job to deliver colonoscopies in a timely manner and there was no need for a charity hospital, but here we are nearly a year on, and we are no further ahead,’’ she said.
‘‘. . . These long waits and delays are not only cruel and inhumane, but they kill people,’’ Vining said.
After the meeting, Vining continued the ‘buy a brick’ fundraising campaign launched last week.
The charity has $500,000 of donations in the bank but needs another $500,000 to begin renovations to turn the old Clifton Tavern into a charity hospital in Invercargill.
There were 5000 bricks to be sold at $100 each and yesterday afternoon 667 had been sold.