Wait-list death numbers go askew

An administrative error is behind the public release of incorrect figures on the number of people who died while on Northland Health surgical waiting lists last year.
The Northland District Health Board says figures showing 72 people on hospital waiting lists died last year were incorrect - they actually died over a five-year period.
The figures were released by Act MP Heather Roy, who said they covered the 12 months to the end of September last year.
However, DHB surgical services general manager Jane Holden said the number of deaths quoted related to a five-year period, making the true figure closer to 14 deaths a year.
Although 72 deaths were identified during a review of waiting lists last year, the review had covered a five-year period - the Ministry of Health passed the figures on to Mrs Roy, but did not identify them as over a five-year period.
There was also no evidence to suggest the people died because they were waiting for an operation, Ms Holden said.
People on elective surgery waiting lists were not acutely ill, she said. "They are people with conditions that are not life-threatening, which makes the assertion that they are dying because they have not had an operation even more misleading," she said. If their conditions became life threatening, people were transferred to the acute surgery list. Acute services run 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
In response, Mrs Roy said the figures had been obtained from the Ministry of Health from information supplied by the DHB. "I've used these figures in good faith. If there is a mistake, it is not by me," she said.
She had not been trying to say people died because of their condition, but rather that the wait for surgery was too long.
The Ministry of Health confirmed the information was based on figures supplied by the DHB and has subsequently been informed that the figure included people who had died in previous years but were only exited from the system in the year ending September 2004.
Mrs Roy said she raised the issue not because she believed people were dying of their conditions but to highlight a disturbing trend.
The number of people dying while on waiting lists nationally had increased from 850 in the year to August 2003 to 1187 in the year to August 2004.
"That's a huge - they (health officials) have to ask themselves why there has been such a big increase," she said.
Ms Holden said the age of some patients receiving surgery had risen dramatically and older patients were more likely to die of natural causes.
Meanwhile, the number of people receiving elective surgery was increasing, she said.
In the 2003/04 financial year, 9481 people had operations in Northland compared with 8692 the previous year.
Average monthly volumes were now 790 operations compared with 724 the year before and 686 in the year before that.
That was reflected in waiting lists where we now have 2047 people waiting for elective surgery compared with 2361 in June last year.