KEY POINTS:
Sherryle Roberts' eyes glisten with tears. "It was hell," she says. "Mum was lying there on a trolley, under this glaring fluorescent light.
"The place was busy, noisy, with constant movement. Police came in with people handcuffed to them - big rough guys walking past. And there's Mum,
who's 83 and basically law abiding, who's paid her taxes, and never put a foot wrong in her life ...
"It was such a scary, horrible experience."
This is the rough edge of North Shore Hospital's emergency care system. Ms Roberts' mother spent four days in the emergency department, with a broken hip. Because she was waiting for surgery she was not allowed painkillers, or anything to drink or eat. And because she suffers from dementia she was doubly upset.
She did, however, realise that she had been put in nappies - and instructed to use them.
"She was saying, 'it's my dignity'. When they came to clean her up they wheeled her into a cubicle, and I'm holding her, saying 'It's all right Mum' and she said, 'No, it's not all right. Don't let them do this to me!'
"That first day was the hardest," said the daughter, who shaded her mother's eyes with a pillow case to cut down the glare, then lay on the narrow trolley beside her to calm her. "It was like a total nightmare - and I knew I wouldn't wake up and find it had gone away."
Even after her mother went to sleep around 10pm, Ms Roberts was worried about leaving her in case she fell off the trolley. Only when an elderly man in a cubicle said he'd ask the nurse to let them have his cubicle did conditions improve. The trolley was replaced with a high-sided bed.
Her mother's operation was scheduled for the Sunday, then cancelled, so she was allowed pain relief and food. The third day she was on the list - starved again - then "bumped" about 3.30pm. Then, on the fourth day, in the late morning, she was wheeled into theatre. For most of the preceding four days she had not been allowed to eat or drink.
A doctor who does not want to be identified said that the care of Ms Roberts' mother was unacceptable: "The chest and the heart don't do well if you leave people lying around with broken hips."
This kind of horror story is the result of years of pressure on North Shore Hospital's emergency department. General manager Rachel Haggerty said that without knowing the details, it was difficult to comment, but the wait might have been due to "co-morbidity factors or operating theatres overloaded" rather than emergency department overcrowding.
The hospital is short of 60 fulltime nurses while its tower block wards are running at near 100 per cent full. Because of the way funding is calculated, Waitemata DHB, which has the healthiest and wealthiest constituents in the country, is the lowest-funded district health board in New Zealand.
Which brings us to the final chapter in this tragic story.
"I left for a rest while Mum was having the operation and when I came back she was recovering in ward four," says Sherryle. "Then I got called to the nurses' station. They were releasing her. The ambulance ... came and picked her up and she was back at the resthome in Waitakere by six."
Her mother had had a proper hospital bed for around two hours. There was virtually no postoperative care. And she has never walked again.
The saddest thing of all is that Ms Roberts is reluctant to give her mother's name because her father is waiting for a hip replacement. She fears he will lose his place on the list if she complains.
