Pamphlets from the Office of the Health and Disability Commissioner, advising people of their rights. Photo / Office of the Health and Disability Commissioner
Pamphlets from the Office of the Health and Disability Commissioner, advising people of their rights. Photo / Office of the Health and Disability Commissioner
A woman whose father spent his last days in an aged care facility says communication with the Office of the Health and Disability Commissioner (HDC) was confusing, slow and arduous.
An increase in the number of complaints received by the commissioner last yearhad created a backlog, and investigations were taking longer than expected to be concluded.
By February this year, 2365 complaints were being assessed by the commissioner, 300 more than at the same time in 2021.
University lecturer Emily Rutland has lived in Amsterdam for more than a decade, and had to watch her dad’s last day in an aged care facility online.
Because of the pandemic, she was not able to come back to New Zealand, and said the experience was one of the worst things she had been through.
“We could not fly to New Zealand, we could not even travel outside of our provinces; we were all working from home, so we were observing everything from FaceTime.
“We watched my father die on the computer, which was a terrible experience.”
Rutland said the day her dad passed, she received a call from the aged care facility indicating his condition had deteriorated and he needed to be transferred to a hospital.
“My dad had a ‘do not intervene’ clause. He wanted to just be let go,” Rutland said.
“We didn’t want to put him in the ambulance because he was so fragile that the risk of him either dying in the ambulance at the hospital, in an unfamiliar setting around people whom he didn’t know - it was just not nice.”
Rutland said the communication issues between the rest home staff and her family raised concerns about her dad’s welfare, and she decided to place a formal complaint with the facility.
She said finding out where to place her complaint was a hassle.
Health and Disability Commissioner Morag McDowell. Photo / Dean Purcell
“We initially filed a complaint with the local services, and what we did not know is that you could not have simultaneous complaints at the same time, so it was either one or the other [the HDC or the local services].”
Rutland said she had to drop her initial complaint with the DHBs to be able to place one with the Health and Disability Commissioner.
“So, when we did that, there was a bit of confusion. Each department didn’t know who was taking the lead.”
In the past three years, the commissioner’s office received 8690 complaints, and last year, the number of complaints increased by 25 per cent.
Rutland said after waiting almost a year to hear back about her case, the commissioner’s assessment was lacking in detail.
“It [the HDC response] was riddled with the commissioner’s opinion, but we were not ever soliciting her opinion.”
She said her family wanted a report with facts and benchmarks on the nature of the complaint and what HDC would do about it.
“Not ‘I think or I feel’,” Rutland said.
“We wanted something scientific that we could hold on to and [use to] create a measurable understanding of what happened, and they never provided that for us.”
“It goes back to the lack of culpability, the lack of transparency. It’s like they [the HDC] do the bare minimum and try to get this [the complaints] off their plate.
“That was the impression that we got,” she said.
HDC should be more proactive, says advocate
Former director of advocacy under the Health and Disability Commissioner, Paul Curry, said the rise in the number of complaints was alarming.
“The main role of HDC in solving complaints is to make sure things don’t happen again. To improve services and make a difference in outcomes for individuals.
“I can’t see it happening for the simple reason that the number of complaints is going up.”
He said more advocates should be involved in the early stages of a disagreement between a person and a provider to fix the issue before a complaint needed to be filed.
“If we had something at the front end of the system, rather than the back end, we [would] not be having the complaints coming forward. Because people would be able to have someone to work with them to make sure they get what’s theirs by right.”
Curry said the system could be more proactive about avoiding complaints instead of having to assess them.
“People’s experiences end up with HDC as a complaint, rather than getting their service provided to them properly from the beginning.”
‘Growing number of open files’
In a statement, Health and Disability Commissioner Morag McDowell said the office was working hard to catch up with the backlog.
“The increase in complaints experienced by my office is unprecedented and we are managing a growing number of open files.”
She said each complaint was unique, and when an investigation was not likely to get the best outcome, there was always a chance to learn from it.
“We endeavour to take an educative approach in the many cases where we find an investigation is not likely to get the best outcome.”
Early resolution was usually the best option, and often referring an issue back to the provider got better results for the complainant and provider in the timeliest way, the statement said.
McDowell said in cases like Emily Rutland’s, HDC could bring concerns to the attention of HealthCert - “the agency responsible for making sure residential care facilities provide safe and reasonable care that complies with the relevant service standards”.
She said HDC was sensitive and empathetic to all complaints and understood that many of them arose from a deeply distressing situation.
McDowell said those who placed complaints were welcome to contact HDC directly for any additional information, and ultimately take their concerns to the Ombudsman.
