Patient in hospital for allergy gets neck broken

Waitemata District Health Board chief executive Dave Davies. Photo / Supplied

When Beach Haven woman Kay Chand was taken to North Shore Hospital in June with an allergy, the last thing she expected was to end up with a broken neck.

Mrs Chand, 64, said she told nurses she was feeling giddy, but they failed to support her while giving her an injection and she broke a bone in her neck when she fell.

"I am very angry, and many of my family members were also very angry," said Mrs Chand, who is still fitted with a collar. "I went to the hospital for a small thing, and ended up being physically injured and staying in hospital for 10 days."

Mrs Chand, originally from Fiji, said her stay in hospital was "horrible". She said she struggled to get anyone at the hospital to help her wash in the mornings.

After the Herald report on the death of 37-year-old Brendon Parrish, more than 30 readers responded with horror stories about the hospital.

Waitemata DHB chief executive Dave Davies said that because of patient confidentiality, the board was not able to comment on individual cases.

But he said all the patients that had been identified by the Herald would be contacted to discuss their individual care and follow up.

"Waitemata acknowledges the distress felt by the families and people ... their concerns are important to us and we are acting on them," Mr Davies said. "Our initial reviews have shown the cases identified are a mixture of those that have been investigated previously, those that received care in the normal course of events and those whose care should definitely be investigated."

Mr Davies said the board continues to have absolute confidence in the clinicians and medical staff at the hospital "who work tirelessly for our community, often under the most demanding conditions".

A reader, who wanted to be known only as Maree, said she took her complaint to the health commissioner after her 75-year-old mother was treated "shockingly" at the hospital in 2003.

Maree said the commissioner had told her he was unable to investigate the details of her mother's death fully because she made the complaint after four years, and the hospital registrar had left the country.

She said her mother, who was twice admitted with a "racing" heart, had pleaded to be admitted a third time when she felt unwell - but was told by reception "this is a hospital, not a hotel" and asked to go home.

"Five days later, my mother went missing from her home," Maree said. "Her body was found a week later."

Maree said the coroner could not establish the cause of death - and she does not blame the hospital - but felt it could have done better.

Kathryn Dixon, 38, who shattered a collar bone in 2008, said she was given a codeine tablet and told to go home because the injury would "heal itself". But Ms Dixon was admitted for surgery after she requested a copy of the x-ray the hospital had taken, which made doctors there take a second look at her injuries.

"As it turned out, I was extremely lucky to have avoided serious nerve damage. A bone shard had been resting on the main nerve bundle of the arm," said Ms Dixon, a civil servant.

Ms Dixon said she did not lodge a complaint because she didn't see the point. "It is a shocking hospital and it's been like that for years, and I thought what was the point."