6:45 pm today

Telehealth consult morphs into comedy of errors

6:45 pm today

By Lee Scanlon of Westport News

The Buller health centre Te Rau Kawakawa. The new building replaced the former Buller Hospital and is intended to enable the expansion of the range of primary care services across the wider Buller District.

When Alison arrived at Te Rau Kawakawa/ Buller Hospital a nurse told her told the Ka Ora doctor had provided a pharmacy script - the wrong paperwork for the hospital. Photo: Supplied

A Westport woman says her appointment with the West Coast's new telehealth provider, Ka Ora, morphed into a comedy of errors.

Alison* suffers from inflammatory bowel disease diverticulitis. Symptoms can include stomach pain, bleeding, fever and nausea.

Alison knows that when it flares up, she needs an antibiotic.

Her latest flare up happened on a Sunday before Christmas. She couldn't go to an urgent GP clinic because the Coast's clinics were scrapped in October and replaced by Ka Ora.

"I knew I needed an antibiotic. I was trying to put it off until the next day, but I knew I couldn't," she said.

Alison phoned Ka Ora at 9am and spoke to a receptionist who said a nurse would call her back. The nurse called 30 minutes later, listened to Alison's problem, said she would need to speak to a doctor and made a video conference appointment for her at 10.45am.

At that appointment the doctor went through Alison's medical history and, Alison said, was very thorough.

The doctor suggested referring Alison to a local emergency department doctor. Alison reiterated she knew what was wrong. She only needed a prescription.

"Eventually she said, 'Ok, I'll give you an antibiotic'. Then she said, 'The pharmacy doesn't close until 12 o'clock. You could just pop down and get it'."

"I said, 'So which pharmacy is that?'."

"She said, 'Westland Pharmacy'.

"I said, 'That's in Hokitika.'

"She said, 'How far away is that from you?'

"I said, 'Two and a half hours.'

"She went, 'Oh'."

Alison suggested the doctor arrange for her to get some pills from the Westport health facility and provide a prescription to fill when Buller Pharmacy opened the next day.

"She said: 'Oh yes, you could pick them up from Te Nīkau Hospital'.

"I said: 'That's in Greymouth'."

"She said: 'How far away is that?'"

The hospital is 1.5 hours' drive from Westport.

The doctor agreed to send the paperwork to Te Rau Kawakawa/ Buller Hospital. Alison arrived there at midday to pick up her pills. But a nurse told her told the Ka Ora doctor had provided a pharmacy script - the wrong paperwork for the hospital. The nurse tried unsuccessfully to contact Ka Ora to get the paperwork corrected.

Fortunately, a doctor working at the hospital overheard the conversation, provided the appropriate paperwork, and gave Alison enough pills to tide her over until Monday.

As she was driving home, the Ka Ora doctor she had spoken to earlier called her.

"She obviously didn't understand what was going on and what paperwork they needed. She said, 'I've cancelled the script for Buller Pharmacy. I've sent one to Westland Pharmacy and they'll courier it'."

"I said, 'Today?'.

"She said, 'Yes'."

The doctor was unaware urgent scripts sent to Westland Pharmacy must be lodged by 11.45am Sunday for delivery Coastwide. As Alison suspected, the courier delivery didn't turn up.

The following day, she called Buller Pharmacy to ask about her script. The pharmacy said it had had one, but it had been cancelled.

"They said 'There's another one here from Westland Pharmacy, but it's only pending so we can't dispense it, so you have to ring them up."

Alison called Westland Pharmacy.

"They said: 'No, we've sent it to Buller'.

"I said: 'But it's pending'."

Westland sorted the problem quickly and Alison finally got her script from Buller Pharmacy at midday Monday - 26 hours after the Ka Ora doctor had written it.

"I think I had about seven phone calls and six emails," Alison said. "I thought, for God's sake, they don't even know the geography of the West Coast."

Her $19 Ka Ora bill arrived immediately.

Alison said a nurse at Te Rau Kawakawa told her she was the third person they had seen that Sunday with the wrong Ka Ora paperwork. The nurse was unaware of Westland Pharmacy's Sunday courier deadline.

"I said: 'What happens to people at Karamea? How do they get any medication if they need it? They can't. It's just totally ridiculous'."

Alison is making a formal complaint to health authorities.

When primary health organisation, West Coast Health, scrapped the Coast's urgent weekend GP clinics last October it promised Ka Ora clinicians had been well briefed on the Coast's geography and health facilities and local staff knew how the new system worked.

The News has approached West Coast Health and Health NZ West Coast for comment.

*Not her real name.

*This story originally appeared in the Westport News

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