128 shot patients in five years
More than 100 patients with gunshot wounds have been treated at Waikato hospitals in the past five years.
The largest cohort of gunshot patients presented when the country was in the middle of dealing with Covid-19, so in 2021 there were 33 people admitted to hospital, Te Whata Ora figures show.
The figures include rural emergency department transfers to Waikato Hospital.
Men make up the vast majority of the wounded, being 121 of the 128 patients over five years, and hunters are commonly injured.
Last year, 22 people presented with gunshot wounds, which is the same as in 2020.
Waikato Hospital trauma director Grant Christey said, by volume, gunshot wounds are a tiny part of what they see at the hospital. “We see over 3000 admissions a year, and we see one gunshot a month, so it’s very small numbers.”
“Penetrating injury – which is all gunshots, stabs, people getting impaled – is only 4% of our major trauma load and gunshot is a tiny portion of those. We see nearly twice as many nail gun injuries as we see gunshot injuries.”
In saying that, Christey said they aren’t fazed by patients with
a gunshot wound, given they deal with the likes of stab wounds and people being impaled on machinery. “We do all those things, so it’s nothing too unusual to us. We are geared up to deal with those injuries.”
As of April 2023, police figures show there are 22,264 active standard firearm licences in the Waikato district. In New Zealand, there are 240,055 people aged 16 to 109 years old who hold an active firearms licence.
And Waikato Hospital is the only level one trauma centre in the country, meaning it often gets referrals from surrounding areas.
“We have one of the highest volumes in New Zealand, so have a full range of trauma treating specialities and staff, and by and large the systems work very well,’’Christey said.
“We have a Waikato district which is around 340,000, but we service the broader region which is 1 million. We have five districts, which is Lakes, Taranaki, Tairāwhiti; Bay of Plenty, which is Tauranga plus Whakatāne. So we get referrals of really badly injured patients, major trauma they come here.”
Generally, patients injured by firearms come via police or ambulance.
“We do record all patients in our trauma registry, we’ve got all our patients going back over 15 years,” Christey said.
“So we know who has come in and what their diagnoses were, but we don’t have to report that to anyone.”
A glancing bullet can mean the treatment of a gunshot wound is a laceration and some bruising. But wounds can be hard to treat, depending on the energy of the projectile and the type.
‘‘A gunshot at close range in the middle of the body is going to cause a huge amount of damage. Similarly, a high-powered rifle will cause a large amount of damage if it’s centred on the body, torso or even the head.’’
As for getting the bullet out, that depends on what has happened to it after hitting the person.
‘‘We don’t go chasing small fragments unless they’re in a critical structure. So we don’t take out shrapnel. If you see a fragmented bullet or gunshot there are just pellets everywhere. There is no way you can find them and pull them out, so we leave them in there.
‘‘And everyone is worried about lead poisoning but the effect of lead poisoning from a pellet is very small. A lot of bullets have a different chemical structure now, so we just leave them.’’
Hunters are the primary group that get injured, Christey said.
Of the gunshot injuries that Waikato Hospital sees, about 37% are inflicted by someone else, 50% are unintentional while a small proportion are attempted suicides.
‘‘The numbers are even smaller when you look at the assault data compared to the unintentional. So looking at some of the big American cities and around the world our numbers are very good considering our gun ownership rates are quite high.
‘‘I hope it stays like that, but who knows. As gang tension flares up, you can get a little bit more of that.’’