A former Northland District Health Board renal driver has raised concerns about the DHB's renal service's patient transfer service. Photo / File
A former Northland District Health Board renal driver has raised concerns about the DHB's renal service's patient transfer service. Photo / File
A former renal driver for the Northland District Health Board has spoken out about poor management and rogue drivers working at the DHB's patient transfer service.
Whangārei man Craig Lewis, who was employed by the DHB from 2013 until early August last year, said "the whole patient transfer service isin shambles" and management had done little to fix longstanding issues.
Lewis complained about a former colleague who was allegedly speeding and driving irresponsibly to the extent that patients were concerned for their safety.
He also called out his former supervisors over "poor management", saying they repeatedly ignored complaints from staff and patients about the way the service was run and said few drivers had a legally required passenger endorsement when he first started at the patient transfer service.
Dr Nick Chamberlain, DHB chief executive, expressed disappointment over Lewis' decision to share confidential information with the media but stressed that the DHB's standards were "high when it comes to meeting our obligations to patients, staff and the wider public".
The DHB renal transport service was brought in-house in 2013 to transport more than 100 patients throughout Northland, to and from dialysis three times a week, to three dialysis centres in Whangārei, Kawakawa and Kaitaia.
Former District Health Board renal driver Craig Lewis describes some of the drivers as being irresponsible. Photo / John Stone
Lewis described how renal transport management allegedly failed to establish a regular roster for the renal drivers and said few had the required passenger endorsement.
In a confidential complaint from 2015 lodged by a former DHB patient, the patient reported an incident about the "outrageous behaviour" of one of the renal drivers, describing their driving as "extremely dangerous".
"If there is a vehicle ahead of us [they] will accelerate and pass that vehicle, whether it's safe to do so or not. [They have] on at least one occasion passed on a tight blind corner," the report reads.
The patient said the rides with that driver were "very uncomfortable and scary", and they prayed every morning that they would arrive in hospital "in one piece".
The patient also reported how the driver verbally abused them while undergoing dialyses after they learned about the complaint.
While Lewis claimed that issues with the driver were never addressed, the DHB said they were following-up all complaints made in the past.
"[Mr Lewis's] previous direct managers are no longer with the DHB, but from our records, patient complaints appear to have been addressed consistently by them," Chamberlain said.
"In response to the specific allegation concerning a patient complaint, we have evidence that the manager did address the issue."
If a preferred applicant doesn't have a P endorsement, the DHB supports them through a course before they can start their role.
"It is a sophisticated service to manage, and it has taken time to develop a suitable framework and embed the right processes to run the service efficiently.
"We systematically address any areas of concern raised, and our current focus is on automating the dispatching function of the service through collaboration with another provider," he said.
Chamberlain said the service was critical to ensure that renal dialysis remains accessible to all Northlanders.
"We reinforce the importance of this to our drivers regularly through communications, improvement of processes and by our consistent and prompt actions in the event of non-compliance."
The DHB has installed GPS trackers and CCTV recorders in all vehicles to ensure service operations are run as intended.
During his employment, Lewis had about 10 complaints lodged against himself, mostly because he refused to drive passengers to the bakery or a fast food shop, he said.
"There were never any complaints against my driving, and I never had any speeding tickets," he said.
At a meeting in 2016, Lewis' management considered suspending him after one of his supervisors reported he had been swearing and yelling at her in the office.
The proposed suspension case was dropped, with several witnesses supporting Lewis' account of the incident.
In the last instance, Lewis pointed out the DHB was "wasting taxpayers' money" because it had to hire taxis to cover for periods of insufficient staffing.
The DHB confirmed it uses taxi drivers to supplement the workforce.
"The nature of the service is that demand exceeds resources for a couple of hours around midday," a spokesperson said.
"It is a balancing act to right size the workforce while still providing a decent living in terms of hours to each driver."
