West Coast residents presented a petition to Parliament on Tuesday urging the House of Representatives to address issues surrounding the unsatisfactory delivery of health services to the community of Buller due to workforce shortages.

The petition, presented by health advocate Malcolm Mulholland, comes on the back of the death of Leonides Lozano, aged 51, who died only hours after being released as a patient at Te Rau Kawakawa (Buller) Hospital on July 17.

“My major concern there, having been in touch with the widow, is that she has not received any correspondence since the night of his death from Health New Zealand from anybody from the West Coast. The lack of communication with that family is of extreme concern,” Mulholland says.

3,000 signed petition to fix staff shortage

Malcolm was joined by his father, George Mulholland, and they handed over a 3,000-signed petition to MP and former health minister Ayesha Verrall calling for a fix to staffing shortages at Te Rau Kawakawa.

Mulholland says Health Minister Shane Reti has a lot to answer for. “He should be picking up the phone asking Te Whatu Ora’s Margie Apa what the hell is going on there because she has no idea what’s going on. She didn’t even know that there was an investigation into his death,” Mulholland says.

In response, Reti has confirmed to journalists that the review into the death of Lozano has a timeframe. Reti says it will be roughly three months from the day that it started. “So we’ve explored that and the local team is continuing to work around a health workforce and how we can continue to build up a health force in the West Coast and in Buller.”

$21m facility but shortstaffed

Last year Te Raukawakawa opened its doors at a cost of $21 million. It caters to a population of 10,000 people where the largest percentage of the people are above the age of 80.

Despite its facilities, the staffing shortages have caused many problems including 40% of consultations being conducted via telehealth.

“Since the new hospital been up and running just over a year, it’s been closed 11 times and for a total of just over a month, Mulholland says. “So when people need emergency services that is, at 6′s or 7′s, they can’t turn up at their local hospital to get the care that they need.”

Reti agrees it’s not the ideal situation and says “in any of our rural places and sometimes our metropolitan as well it is ideal to have face-to-face, but in various parts, we are relying on telehealth, so we are doing our very best to decrease that as we can but we going to need more specialists before we can do that.”

Certainly a lot more work ahead for Health NZ while Lozano’s widow and four children wait for the Serious Incident Review from Health NZ, due at the end of October.

The below statement was provided by Health NZ (Te Whatu Ora) following the airing of the story:

A spokesperson from Health NZ says “Our sincere condolences are with the family. The family will be included in the review process as it progresses.”

“The unit was fully staffed and open at the time of this incident. There were both medical (doctor) and nursing staff onsite and the clinical emergency response team was activated,” says a spokesperson from Health NZ.