Patients die in queue for heart care

Heart patients are dying because they have to wait too long for surgery, doctors say.

Health Ministry information shows 60 patients have waited for more than six months at Green Lane Hospital, which takes patients from Auckland and Northland.

At Wellington Hospital, which takes heart patients from Nelson, Wellington, Wanganui, Palmerston North and Hawkes Bay, 84 patients have been waiting more than six months for cardiothoracic surgery. That figure has risen steadily from 51 at the start of last year despite Government guidelines that say patients should wait no longer than six months.

At Christchurch Hospital, which covers much of the South Island, 120 patients approved for surgery are yet to receive an operation date.

Green Lane coronary care director Harvey White said several patients had died in the past few years while waiting for surgery.

He could not give an exact number but said research showed that at any one time, one in five people on the waiting list had about a 15 per cent a year risk of dying. Surgery reduced that to about 3 per cent, he said.

"They have heart disease, there is a treatment that's very good, but they are not getting it because of funding issues and they might die or have a heart attack."

Professor White said 10 people on Green Lane's waiting list had been waiting longer than a year. For those waiting there was a huge decline in quality of life, he said.

He knew of patients who had not gone on holiday or to family weddings because they did not want to miss a letter from the hospital giving them a surgery date.

"For a patient it's a nightmare."

He said many patients were forced to give up their jobs because the points system did not consider whether a person's condition prevented them from working.

"There are people facing severe pain. We could do an operation and have them back at work within a month, but instead they have to give up their job ... that is a hopeless health system."

The present points threshold for patients to receive an operation was too high, meaning about one in five patients needing surgery missed out, he said.

The Government had provided extra ad hoc funding for operations to be performed, but had not increased the actual capacity of hospitals to routinely perform more surgery, Professor White said.

Heart Foundation medical director Diana North said the Government and health boards needed to urgently address the number of patients waiting for heart surgery.

A Capital and Coast District Health Board spokeswoman said Wellington Hospital staff were now operating on some Saturdays in order to reduce the waiting list.

Extra theatre sessions would also be added for cardiac surgery this year.

She said the ministry figures included patients who had requested that their surgery be deferred. The board believed a more accurate figure of patients waiting longer than six months was about 70 - a slight reduction on the previous month.

Green Lane spokesman Warren Smith said the hospital had halved its waiting list in the past two years, but it was still too long. Dr Smith said another theatre had been opened for heart surgery, but doctors were seeing more complex cases, which required more time.

A Health Ministry spokesman said it was the boards' responsibility to manage surgery waiting times.

- NZPA

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