Editorial: Heart of the Mater

It is plain daft to send sick, stressed heart patients from Wellington to Australia for operations, The Dominion Post writes.

New Capital and Coast District Health Board chief executive Ken Whelan needs to stop the foolishness that has seen the board plan on sending up to 50 patients to Australia's private Mater Hospital because it has blown out its waiting lists. With a little planning, the operations could have been done at a private hospital only a few hundred metres up the road from Wellington Public Hospital. Wakefield Hospital chief executive Andrew Blair says if they had been given at least six months' notice, they could have done the job, despite the claim by Barry Mahon, Capital and Coast's clinical leader of cardiothoracic surgery, that, "we are fully utilising every feasible public and private avenue in New Zealand".

Health Minister David Cunliffe is right to fear the decison will become a political football. It shows all the symptoms of a sclerotic health system that is insufficiently flexible to take advantage of private providers here, and he deserves to be worried about going into an election presiding over a health system that gobbles up $12.6 billion a year, but that cannot deliver surgery in Wellington that would help prevent Kiwis dying from what is New Zealand's second biggest killer.

Capital and Coast patients already wait longer for their heart operations than anybody else in the country - more than twice as long as Aucklanders, according to a draft review.

Some progress has been made in fixing that, by sending patients to Otago, Auckland, Waikato and Christchurch. That is not ideal, but sending patients to Australia is far worse.

Cardiac surgery is stressful enough, and flying a patient to another country only adds to that stress.

Capital and Coast is paying for one support person to accompany the patient, but that is a poor substitute for the wider family networks that would be available were the surgery to be carried out in Wellington.

It is equally daft to fail to hold on to skilled, capable child cancer specialists who want to stay in Wellington, but feel forced to walk away because inadequate resourcing is putting patients at risk.

Child cancer specialist Liz Hesketh's resignation, because of "continually dwindling resources and a unit moving toward unsafe clinical practice", was appallingly handled. Senior managers showed such minimal interest in why one of its senior specialists was leaving that she arranged her own exit interview. It was only when The Dominion Post highlighted the issue that the managers decided maybe they should ask her why she had gone.

Mr Whelan was handed a hospital pass when he took over Capital and Coast health. He is grappling with an acknowledged deficit of $40.5 million that is likely to climb, a demoralised staff and public concern over the standard of services.

However, there are many good people working for the board. Dr Hesketh described those she worked with in Wellington as among the best and a privilege to work with. With flexibility, and a willingness to work with the local private sector rather than look overseas, Mr Whelan can do what needs to be done and turn it round.

- © Fairfax NZ News

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Stephen Franks   #2   05:26 pm Jan 28 2009

It would be helpful it your posted versions of editorials could link to the stories that prompt them. This editorial pulls together a whole chronicle of failure and excuses. With links it would have more impact.

Dick Ayres   #1   05:26 pm Jan 28 2009

I have recently recovered from a coronary artery by-pass procedure and would have been most annoyed or possibly dead, if the stupid antics of the bureaucrats had resulted in my having to wait for surgery which may have further threatened my life (the delay not the surgery). I'd have flown to the moon if necessary. Stop these people acting like stupid schoolchildren and get on with their jobs; that of providing timely healthcare for those who have paid their taxes to provide the services. Talk doesn't save lives.

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