9-month wait for vital heart scan
An Auckland woman got the shock of her life when told she was at risk of stroke and a heart attack but would have to wait nine months for a potentially life-saving scan.
But DHB officials were forced to apologise after realising an administration error had been made and Maureen Christian’s case wasn’t as urgent as she’d been told.
It was only when the Weekend Herald made inquiries into the 79-year-old’s case that the error was realised.
Christian was given the initial grim prognosis after being admitted to Middlemore Hospital recently with pneumonia.
She was found to have an enlarged heart, thickening of the walls of the main pumping chamber, and high blood pressure. She said the hospital specialist told her to be careful as risks included stroke and heart attack.
A specialist noted in her hospital discharge care document she needed a cardiac ultrasound done within six weeks to examine her heart’s structure and function.
But she received a further shock earlier this month — nine weeks after she came home from hospital — when she got a letter telling her she would have to wait 40 weeks for a scan.
“It certainly put my blood pressure up,” Christian told the Weekend Herald. “It’s a shock. Nine months. It only takes that long to have a baby.”
She thought it was a misprint but was told the service was busy and had to factor in emergencies.
“I was shattered because I thought, ‘Oh gee, I have another life ahead of me’,” the grandmother of two said.
“I had lots of energy and now I get short of breath.
“I thought it would be something they would get on to. The longer you leave it, the worse it might be.”
In a statement provided to the Weekend Herald, Counties Manukau DHB chief executive Margie Apa said patients who didn’t need emergency care were prioritised by a cardiologist and placed into five bands.
An echo-cardiogram was aimed to be done within two weeks for Priority 1 patients, six weeks for Priority 2 and 12 weeks for Priority 3. Those deemed “nonurgent” might wait up to 46 weeks.
Christian’s priority rating was missing from the notice informing her of the ninemonth wait. But the earlier recommendation she be seen within six weeks appeared to place her as a Priority 2 patient.
The DHB said Christian’s clinical priority rating was omitted because of an administrative error “and we apologise for the distress this may have caused”.
A spokesperson said Christian’s case had also been reviewed by a specialist cardiologist who decided “based on her clinical notes and tests from when she was in hospital that she is at a relatively lower clinical risk”. It put her at a non-urgent rating.
“We acknowledge that this has not been explained to the patient, either through her GP or by the hospital.”
Christian’s case comes at a time when cardiology screening services are failing to keep up with demand nationwide. Delays in Counties Manukau are among the longest. Shortages of funding and specialist technicians have been identified as issues.
Auckland District Health Board is the regional provider of electro-physiology services for the Northern region. A report prepared for an July board meeting said demand for heart scans was outstripping funding.
A regional proposal for more money was being prepared. The report also said further work was needed to agree and adopt “clinical prioritisation criteria” to ensure the budget was not overrun.
Apa acknowledged delays are “longer than we would like.” The DHB was, however, doing more than 1000 outpatient echocardiograms plus 1300 on patients in hospital.
Auckland, Capital and Coast and Canterbury were among large DHBs with waits of longer than 12 weeks while Waitemata DHB had an average wait of seven months for patients not deemed urgent.