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Letters to the Editor

Letters: Death in a hospital ED was a tragedy but unfortunately predictable

Letters
NZ Herald
A patient who died in a waiting room toilet at Waikato Hospital is believed to have been waiting in the emergency department for nine hours. Photo / Mike Scott
A patient who died in a waiting room toilet at Waikato Hospital is believed to have been waiting in the emergency department for nine hours. Photo / Mike Scott

Real action needed after tragic death at hospital

The death of a man who had apparently been waiting in the Waikato Hospital Emergency for over nine hours is a terrible tragedy. Unfortunately, the fact that it has happened was highly predictable.

I am concerned that any inquiries ordered by the hospital, Health Department and minister will focus on the actions and decisions of the on-duty staff and deflect from the real reasons – short staffing and insufficient hospital facilities.

Triaging patients to see who should be given priority is inherently challenging, as many with potentially urgent conditions may have quite non-specific or apparently mild symptoms, or be hesitant to “jump the queue”. So to force clinical staff to correctly identify all such risk cases at the same time as they are overwhelmed by overflowing waiting rooms, and leave most patients lingering there for hours on end, is a recipe for many adverse outcomes.

There is a strong risk that staff get blamed, the Health Department and minister express sympathy and condolences, and promise “improvements are planned”, while the real need for actual actions (of urgent increased staffing, more hospital facilities and enhanced support for primary care) continues unfulfilled, subsumed by questionable “reduced waiting-time” targets and budget-balancing.

Richard Stirling (retired doctor), New Windsor.

Health civil emergency

Emergency department wait times were recently claimed to have improved. We get told repeatedly by Health Minister Simeon Brown that record amounts of funding and increased staffing have all been achieved. Well done, or is this pulling the proverbial wool over our eyes?

What’s the actual explanation? Could inflation explain that in real terms less money is available? Could recent pay rounds coming in at sub-inflationary levels help explain staff shortages? Could stress or sickness be at fault?

What about the health impacts related to the the inability to heat poor rental accommodation, the cost of electricity outstripping incomes, or poor nutrition caused by exorbitant food prices?

The recent death of a patient at the Waikato Hospital emergency department after a nine-hour wait has blown a “civil emergency” howler. If we cannot cope at normal times, how in hades would we cope in a civil emergency?

Steve Russell, Hillcrest.

Govt lunch losses

The overhaul of our school lunch programme stands as a glaring example of short-sighted government policy, where superficial savings mask deeper economic losses.

Under the previous model, local companies thrived. They employed local staff, sourced fresh regional produce, and delivered nutritious, appealing meals with remarkably little waste. Crucially, this created a virtuous economic cycle: companies paid local taxes, employees paid income tax, and household spending generated additional GST. The profit remained in Aotearoa.

In stark contrast, the current system funnels public money to an overseas-owned corporation. The meals are widely criticised as unappetising and nutritionally deficient, while staggering levels of wastage plague the supply chain. Worse, this arrangement contributes little to our domestic tax base, and profits are repatriated offshore.

The Government’s claimed “savings” are therefore a fiscal illusion. These estimates conveniently ignore the decimated tax revenue from displaced local operators and their workers – a real cost that far outweighs any superficial budget cuts.

If we allow this kind of muddled, short-term thinking to become the new norm, we risk condemning our economy to a cycle of dependency and drain. To genuinely build a better New Zealand, we must prioritise local enterprise over foreign extraction – starting with the food we put on our children’s plates.

Eddie Mann, Remuera.

A moral issue

In my 80 years as a New Zealander, I’ve watched inequality and polarisation grow. It’s deeply troubling in a country that once prized fairness.

We are still good neighbours. The trouble starts when politicians and aligned media exploit division for votes and clicks. Rising costs hit the poorest hardest, while our hospitals, schools, police, defence, conservation and research are all underfunded. To rebuild fairness and social cohesion, top income earners must support the bottom half through a higher tax contribution. It’s a moral issue: those with the widest shoulders must carry the heaviest load.

John Molloy, St Heliers.

Opportunity and possibility

Commenting on the 4.6% support for the Opportunity Party in the recent 1News-Verian poll, Heather du Plessis-Allan (June 28) neglects sampling variability when she concludes that: “Nearly 5% is not actually 5%.”

For simplicity, define just two possibilities in the eligible voting population: (i) Opportunity has 4.6% support, and (ii) Opportunity has 5% support. It turns out that getting a 4.6% poll value is only slightly more likely under (i) than (ii). It is quite possible, therefore, that Opportunity has already passed 5% support in the eligible voting population.

Earl Bardsley, research associate, University of Waikato School of Science.