Linda Worrall in her Upper Hutt home. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Linda Worrall in her Upper Hutt home. Photo / Mark Mitchell
A woman who was sexually harassed in hospital claims that her call bell was disconnected because there were not enough staff to respond to patients.
Linda Worrall, from Upper Hutt, was repeatedly harassed by another patient at Hutt Hospital when she was recovering from the amputation of one of herlegs.
The 57-year-old’s case is now the subject of a Health and Disability Commission complaint. Health officials have apologised to Worrall over the incident.
She was hospitalised in January last year in relation to complications from a vascular condition, which meant she had poor blood flow.
A small wound eventually led to necrotising fasciitis - a type of flesh-eating disease - and she was told she would die within two days if they did not amputate.
After her operation, she was placed in Hutt Hospital’s Older Persons Rehabilitation Services and Community Team (OPRS) for recovery.
A patient with a history of mental illness began harassing her in her ward. When she was being bathed, he pulled the curtains aside and stared at her. On several occasions, he touched her while she was sleeping.
Linda Worrall, who had both legs amputated because of delayed medical care, in her Upper Hutt home. 25 May, 2023. Story: Isaac Davison NZ Herald photograph by Mark Mitchell
Worrall said staff “shooed” the man away repeatedly but he kept harassing her over a period of three weeks.
“They had to put a guard on the door to stop him coming in. But they couldn’t, he just kept coming in anyway,” she said.
“In the end, I wasn’t eating, I wasn’t sleeping, I was just laying in that bed terrified, wanting to be somewhere safe.”
It was at that time that she claimed that her call bell was disconnected.
“They said they were just so snowed and understaffed that they had no choice but to unplug some of the call bells. And one of them was mine, unfortunately.”
Te Whatu Ora - Capital, Coast and Hutt Valley did not respond directly to questions about the assault or the call bell, saying it could not comment during an ongoing investigation.
“We would like to take this opportunity to reiterate our apology for what this person experienced while an inpatient at the Hutt Hospital Older Persons Rehabilitation Service,” said interim lead hospital and specialist services Jamie Duncan.
In an email in March last year, the hospital said it had made several changes to security, monitoring of “wandering patients”, and training for dealing with “confused patients”.
It also promised to install a security system to monitor patients and change the ward layout to create new spaces for agitated or confused patients. Te Whatu Ora did not directly respond to questions about whether these changes had been completed.
Worrall eventually discharged herself early from the rehabilitation facility. She says she did not lay a complaint with police because the hospital had admitted its errors and she was battling multiple health issues and ACC.
She has since had her other leg amputated, and believes that delayed care is to blame for her situation. Worrall claimed that her GP referred her on multiple occasions to Wellington Hospital’s vascular services but she was not seen until her condition had become severe.
In response, Te Whatu Ora did not answer specific questions about her care but said “the vast majority of our patients receive a safe, timely and high-quality service”.
ACC has approved an injury claim related to the amputations, though it has declined to pay for modifications to her home which would allow her to move freely in her wheelchair and use a shower. An IT worker for 25 years, she is now unable to work.
In relation to the assault, she is not expecting a quick resolution. As the health sector groans from understaffing, a growing population, the pandemic, and more complicated illnesses, complaints to the Health and Disability Commission have risen by around 25 per cent in a year and investigators are dealing with a backlog.
Worrall says she was told it may take one to two years for the commission to open her file.
A spokeswoman for the commission said: “Each complaint is unique and the time it takes to resolve them depends on a number of factors, including the complexity of issues raised, the number of providers involved and whether or not the complaint proceeds to formal investigation. We make sure to advise complainants of this so they can be prepared.”
She said that in the previous financial year, it experienced a 25 per cent increase in complaints on the 2020-2021 year.
“This year we’re forecasting a small reduction from the previous period, however this will still represent a 38 pe cent increase on pre-Covid times.”
*Linda Worrall’s family have set up a Givealittle page
