Christchurch Hospital Emergency Dept Shocker
New Zealand's Sickly Healthcare System & Ballooning Wait Times
The following is an account from the wife (Krystal) of a patient (Brian) who travelled by ambulance to Christchurch Hospital within the last month. The names contained herein have been anonymised.
Brian sustained an injury on our rural property and we had to call an ambulance. He was transferred to Christchurch Hospital emergency department in pain with a broken bone.
I followed by private vehicle and as we approached the hospital Brian texted me that he was already in the Emergency Department. I told the receptionist at the triage desk that my husband had arrived by ambulance and provided his name. After looking at the computer she informed me he was not present, and that she knew the location of all ambulances, and could confirm he had not travelled here by ambulance. As she was saying this I glimpsed him being wheeled into the corridor behind her and pointed him out.
Ambulance stretchers were lined up in the corridor and it seemed like chaos. The receptionist took his details from me in order to enter him into the system and allowed me to wait with him in the corridor, explaining that there were no free cubicles.
Four hours later we were still sitting in the corridor, watching the chaos play out with ambulances arriving and stretchers lining up. Brian said he needed the toilet and, as he was unable to mobilise easily, I returned to the receptionist to ask if someone could assist him. For a second time, I was informed that his name was not in the system.
As I provided Brian’s details to the receptionist once more, she asked a nurse passing by if she could possibly assist him to the toilet. A snappy response came back that no, she already had 13 patients whom she had not yet assessed.
I returned to Brian shortly and an orderly appeared with a wheelchair and helped me get Brian to the toilet. By now it was 6:30 pm and Brian had not eaten since 7 am and started to ask if it would be possible to have some food. I returned to the receptionist, who was by this time another staff member, and I asked if Brian was in the system. She informed me that his details had been entered seven minutes prior!
An hour later a nurse came to assess him.
We asked if he could eat something and after more than five hours of being told he could not eat in case he needed surgery, he was finally given permission to eat. Thankfully, I had some food with me.
A further two hours passed before he was taken to a private cubicle.
A short time later, the specialist arrived to assess Brian. She stated that she had only just been informed of his presence, and had she known, she could have attended to him hours earlier.
We later learned that on this day, Christchurch Hospital was short by 100 nurses in a single day!
Whilst we were in the Emergency Department, at around 7 pm that night, I overheard the receptionist tell another staff member that a man in one of the cubicles had been there since 5 am the day prior and still had not been assessed. The waiting room was overflowing, all cubicles were filled and there were at least seven ambulance stretchers lined up along the hallway. It felt like utter chaos.
At 2 am, Brians’s test results came back and it was decided he should stay overnight. They moved him to a private room but then explained that they needed this room for someone else, and so transferred him to the High Dependency Unit, which was the only place with an available bed. Despite his pain being manageable and Brian being able to mobilise, he shared a room with two accident victims who were unable to move or even feed themselves.
After two nights in hospital, the doctors determined at their morning rounds that Brian was fit for discharge and documented this in his notes. At 1 pm we were informed that because of staffing issues, it would not be possible to discharge Brian as planned, and he would have to stay an extra night. We kicked up a stink and at 3 pm someone arrived and organised his discharge.
Footnote from FreeNZ:
We hope this story gets shared with mainstream media and shared with your local MP too.
Why is our once great country choosing this path to utter self-destruction?
Why is the government not taking the sensible option and letting healthcare workers who understand informed consent back to work?
If this story is anything to go by, then it will only get worse from here. We must demand major reform and overhaul of the New Zealand health system. This type of experience has been far too commonplace among good Kiwis, and it is not good enough.
The government must be held accountable until the necessary changes occur.
If you have a similar story of horrific hospital experience to share for the good of informing this country, please reach out to FreeNZ - by email.
I wonder how many comments are deleted because authorities don't want the truth be known;
yet how long can this tide of truth be suppressed?