Cards with minister’s details ‘not a secret’

A laminated card providing frustrated patients with Health Minister Andrew Little’s contact details was common knowledge in the Wellington emergency department.

A mother recounted how a Wellington Hospital nurse passed one such card to her as she faced ‘‘horror’’ scenes in the emergency department, while her daughter suffered from severe pneumonia with a temperature of 40C.

New Zealand Nurses Organisation delegate Serena Gray said the small laminated cards were kept in a bag in the triage unit and were ‘‘not a secret’’. The contact details directed patients to Little’s parliamentary office.

But Te Whatu Ora’s interim director for the district, Dr John Tait, said ‘‘so far’’ their investigation had not found any evidence the cards were handed out.

Gray said the idea for the cards came from ‘‘the pure frustration of a nurse being yelled at about a situation they can’t change’’.

Nurses were verbally abused by sick patients facing lengthy wait times but were powerless to help with hospitals stretched to breaking point. ‘‘The health system is failing – it’s not a reflection on the hospital, but we all need to get together and find a solution to this.’’

The mother who received a card, who asked not to be named, said her 14-year-old daughter had been unwell for days and antibiotics prescribed by her GP were not working. Her GP told her to go to the emergency department if she was not well over the weekend of November 5.

That Saturday, the girl’s temperature reached 39.6C, she was dizzy, and her pulse was at 125 beats per minute. They went to the emergency department and were eventually called to see a triage nurse who told them there was a six-hour wait and 52 people were ahead of them on the list.

‘‘We had no food, no pain relief, no bedding, and my daughter was miserable. As a mum I was torn [whether to] sit and wait out six hours or more in the so-called ‘emergency’ department or head home.’’ They went home where they checked in with the GP who told them to get straight back to hospital. ‘‘In a terrifying car trip into hospital, my daughter couldn’t speak. She asked to lie flat in the car, she was finding breathing difficult, her temperature had spiked to 40C, and her heart rate was 135bpm.’’ After triage, a nurse arrived, then a house surgeon, then a registrar – all were compassionate and professional, the mother said. While they waited for results, she talked to a nurse.

‘‘I observed that the system looked to be broken. She nodded in agreement. She said that if I was at all motivated, I should contact Health Minister Andrew Little.

‘‘His office email and phone number were on a card which the nurse handed me. The nurses have all tried to have their voices heard, but to no avail. They now need everyone’s help.’’

The cards were not an attack on Little, Gray said – ‘‘but he’s the person who needs to know about the personal experiences of patients, he can help do something about it’’. She agreed with Little that problems with access to primary care, like GP clinics, were causing the pressure in hospitals.

Little said ‘‘the problems in ED are not the problems of ED’’, when asked on Monday how healthcare could be accessible when people could not easily access emergency care. ‘‘To fix the problems in ED we need to fix the problems in primary care, in aged residential care, in allied healthcare,’’ he said.