An intellectually disabled person died after being given an overdose by staff yet the details are not being made public. Photo / 123rf
An intellectually disabled person died after being given an overdose by staff yet the details are not being made public. Photo / 123rf
An intellectually disabled person was given an overdose by staff and died in state-funded care - but all further details about the case are being kept secret.
Despite repeated attempts by the Herald to find out more about the 2017 death - one of 110 in care facilities that year- the Ministry of Health has refused to make any information public, citing "privacy".
It also initially refused to confirm the death was being investigated by police and the coroner, taking two weeks to answer questions about what other agencies were involved.
The stonewalling comes as the Ombudsman investigates how the deaths of the intellectually disabled in care are recorded, after years where the information was not analysed or even collated.
Advocates say the way the deaths are treated show an indifference by officials for the lives of society's most vulnerable, and the Government needs to do better.
"What does this say about valuing the life of that person?" said the IHC's head of advocacy, Trish Grant.
"It's not about privacy. It's about the knowledge than when something goes awry the full force of the state will come in and investigate and there will be less opportunity for it to occur."
The IHC's director of advocacy, Trish Grant, says the lives of the intellectually disabled should be valued.
The death by overdose happened in the second half of 2017, in a government care facility, which are contracted by the Ministry of Health nationwide.
The Herald learned about it only on asking the ministry for all information held on the deaths of intellectually disabled, after the Ombudsman announced his investigation into the way records were kept - an investigation now underway.
The ministry provided just 18 pages of information, saying it started collating information about the deaths only from 2016. When a death occurred, it said, the provider is contractually required to advise the ministry for service quality, assurance and compliance monitoring.
The ministry refused to provide any individual investigation reports, again citing privacy, instead sending a summary table listing the numbers of deaths by year.
In 2016, there were 112 deaths. In 2017, there were 110. Last year there were 82. So far this year there have been 32.
Ombudsman Peter Boshier is investigating the way the deaths of intellectually disabled people in care are recorded. Photo / Supplied
Officials also copied in some excerpts from their six-monthly reports. These described how the youngest death in 2017 was a 17-year-old boy.
The average age at death for an intellectually disabled person was 59 years, compared with 81 for the general population, it said. Five cases had no ages because no birth date was provided at the time of death.
The most common cause of death was respiratory issues.
At the end of the 2017 report, the overdose death was described: "Two deaths were the result of accidents, including an accidental overdose by staff."
No further information was provided. The ministry also refused to provide briefings or memos about the deaths, because none existed.
It said it had no information about death prevention, but that: "Much of the ministry's work relates, indirectly, to the prevention of deaths, including of intellectually disabled people in forensic or residential care."
Disability Rights Commssioner Paula Tesoriero was one of those who welcomed the investigation. Photo / File
It was possible, it said, that another agency might have information on that subject.
When asked about the overdose death, the Health and Disability Commission also refused to comment. The Coroner's office needed more detail before it could say what stage its investigation was up to.
All further questions about the overdose death are now with the ministry's Official Information Act team.
Grant said she was aghast at the ministry's response.
"The health of this population group has been a concern with no outcomes for too many years. I shouldn't be surprised that the recorded deaths don't seem to be a concern at the systems level," she said.
Disability Rights Commissioner Paula Tesoriero had earlier welcomed the Ombudsman's intervention in the issue, saying the voices of people with learning disabilities had often been unheard or silenced for too long.
Yesterday she said she was unable to comment on a particular case, but it was extremely important to ensure appropriate safeguards and frameworks were in place to support quality services for disabled people and robust and transparent review mechanisms were in place if things went wrong.
"Members of the disability community can be particularly susceptible to harm if required standards are not met," she said.
