Told by a doctor to call 111, a seriously ill man found his own lift twice after being told no ambulances were available, and finding an overflowing ED. Photo: rafaelbenari/123RF
- Hato Hone St John says demand "unprecedented", so longer waits for non life-threatening cases in Northland and Auckland
- Patient spent four nights in hospital - one in the corridor and two in the lounge, due to a lack of ward beds
- Health NZ apologises for delays, says North Shore Hospital ED under "significant pressure" that day.
A rural Northland resident who was seriously ill with an infection says he had to get a friend to drive him to hospital because no ambulances were available, then faced the same lack of available ambulances a second time, this time in Auckland.
Last month David started feeling sick on Monday 15 September, with a high fever and a lot of pain.
The 60-year-old had suffered urinary tract infections before and knew he needed antibiotics fast, but could not get a GP appointment until the next day, Tuesday
"He gave me a prescription, and he told me clearly, 'If you're not feeling any better in the morning, don't be a hero - call an ambulance'."
By midday Wednesday, 17 September, it was obvious the pills weren't working, so David called an ambulance.
"And there weren't any. There are three hospitals roughly the same distance apart from where I am. And the lady on the phone said 'There's nothing available to take you there, there's nothing available to take you here, there's nothing available to take you here'.
"I had a friend there at the time, and he turned around and said 'Well, I can take you'."
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The call-taker said because of the delays, his best bet was going straight to North Shore Hospital. But she stressed that if his condition deteriorated en route, the driver should pull over and call 111.
It would be easier for an ambulance to reach him if he were already on the road, she said.
When they arrived at North Shore Hospital emergency department however, there were already more than 50 people in the waiting room.
"I reckon if I had sat down, my bladder would have exploded," David said.
"But she [the triage nurse] said 'We've got nowhere to put him'.
"He [his friend] turned around said 'This is ridiculous'. And she said 'I know. We're currently using the waiting room as the triage room, the rooms in the triage room are full, and all of the patients in them are intubated'."
Unable to sit or stand, David decided to go to a nearby friend's house and call an ambulance from there.
"The plan was I'd only be 15 minutes from the hospital. We'd call an ambulance and I would end up going in the ambulance on a bed and they would transfer me from the ambulance to a bed. That was the theory."
They called 111 and about two hours later, two paramedics arrived - in a car.
"Paramedics were uncertain how to proceed as on two of their indicators I was off the charts. Normal count is five, at 100 you are sent to hospital, and mine was 197!"
They inserted a catheter to drain his bladder.
"That took two goes, it was excruciatingly painful...and then they drained out 1.3 litres of urine, which is huge. My friend and wife, they're sitting there. She's traumatised for life, listening to me screaming."
Normal bladder capacity is 300 - 600mls.
Hospital gridlocked
The paramedics said David needed to go to hospital but his friends would have to take him because there were still no ambulances available.
"They loaded me in the car again, took me to hospital, I think it was about 8:40pm when we got to hospital, and I ended up standing in ED until 10pm. They were still clearing that queue from when I was there before."
He was finally put on a stretcher bed and spent the night in the corridor with many others.
"I spent the night in the corridor, with shit loads of other people."
It was not a comfortable night. Other patients being transported to theatre or radiology had to be zigzagged through the corridor beds.
At one point, someone tripped over his catheter bag, causing him excruciating pain.
"The person who did that was a medical professional and she was beside herself, she was almost in tears. And I was like 'Sweetheart, it's not your fault. You should be able to walk down the f...ing corridor'."
David spent four nights in hospital to get the infection under control, two of those parked in the patient lounge because there was no free bed on the ward.
While being wheeled around the hospital for scans and tests, he could see the gridlock was everywhere.
"I'm doing a zigzag down the corridor and then when they want to turn left into the next corridor, there's isn't the room to do it because there's a bed on the inside of the corner and a bed on the outer edge of the corner.
"So they have to move that person down in front of that door, and move that person's bed backwards in front of that door, so they can get my bed around the corner, then put those two beds back where they were and then carrying on taking me where I need to go.
"Imagine having to [do] that for a car crash victim?"
It was "bullshit" for Minister of Health Simeon Brown to accuse healthworkers of putting politics ahead of patients with this week's huge strike action this Thursday 23 October, David said.
"There's no f...ing way Simeon Brown isn't aware of this, no way.
"Basically they [staff] are like the All Blacks, except they play the game for 12-hour shifts.
"They work together so harmoniously, and the entire thing runs on good will. If it wasn't for that, the wheels would fall off and the whole thing would collapse."
Health NZ apologises
In a written response to RNZ, Health NZ's Director of Operations for Waitematā, Brad Healey, said the agency had apologised to David for the delays he endured.
"We can confirm that North Shore Hospital ED was under significant pressure on the day of his visit, with high numbers of patients presenting throughout the day.
"This led to extended wait times and the use of some non-clinical spaces for patient care.
"We want to reassure people needing urgent hospital-level care that they will always receive it and we never turn people away."
Health NZ was working hard to meet the government's target for shorter stays in the emergency department and wait times continued to improve, Healey said.
"We are managing patient volumes and working closely with our primary care and urgent care partners to manage flow across the health system."
Unprecedented demand for ambulances, St John says
Hato Hone St John area operations manager Travis Slattery said David was assessed by a clinical support officer, who determined he did not have immediately life-threatening symptoms.
"Hato Hone St John is experiencing unprecedented demand for ambulances across the country, with August being our busiest ever month on record with more than 50,000 ambulance incidents, and across Northland and Auckland, demand for emergency ambulances continues to exceed available resources at times."
This meant longer waits for some non-life-threatening cases, Slattery said.
In some cases where an ambulance is not immediately required, St John could send extended care paramedics to assess and treat patients in the community, as happened with David.
St John said it acknowledged it had been a difficult experience for him.
"We are also grateful to his friend for their support."
Meanwhile, David is not waiting for a specialist referral in the public system to get to the bottom of his recurrent infections.
He plans to go to Thailand later this year to consult a private specialist.
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