Auckland City Hospital patient struggles with no hot water during treatment

By Lucy Xia of RNZ

A man who was seriously ill with cancer and underwent a bone marrow transplant at Auckland City Hospital last year had to boil water in a kettle and use a disposable vomit bowl to wash himself because the ward had no running hot water.

Health New Zealand Te Whatu Ora (HNZ) confirmed it became aware of water heating and pressure issues in the support building in 2023, and a partial replacement of the heating plant in mid-2024 “did not meet expectations” – meaning while hot running water was available, intermittent issues persisted.

Several water leaks at Auckland hospitals have occurred recently, including a water outage at Auckland City Hospital in January, and a power outage at the Greenlane Clinical Centre last week after a water leak damaged circuit boards.

Andrew Mackintosh, who had lymphoma, was staying in Auckland City Hospital’s haematology ward for five weeks in September as he underwent a bone marrow transplant.

The ward is part of a 45,000sq m facility built in stages between 1965 and 1971, and has a range of ageing infrastructure issues.

Mackintosh said cleanliness was critical to patients like him who are severely immunocompromised and prone to infections that would increase the risks of dying during the process.

He had a private bathroom in his room and the bedsheets had to be changed daily.

Mackintosh said the shower was not working and there was no running hot water 90% of the time.

“The water was very, very low pressure, like a trickle going down the handle as opposed to a shower spray coming out of the shower, and it was nearly always cold, so even if it had been warm the flow wasn’t enough to wash under,” he said.

Mackintosh said he had to resort to filling disposable vomit containers with kettle-boiled water, then washing with a cloth.

He said it was a struggle to wash in this way in his weakened state.

“Every day it would be a task that I would dread coming in the day, it was just a real undertaking to go through it physically, so that was the starting point, but then I had the anxiety around the fact that I wasn’t doing a good-enough job [washing] and worrying that it would be a real negative impact on my situation,” he said.

Mackintosh said the nurses provided good care for him, but were helpless to fix the water problem.

He said the hot water supply was also intermittent when he was staying in the same ward at Auckland City Hospital for chemotherapy in late 2023.

Mackintosh said he was angry and frustrated and had heard that other bone marrow transplant patients also had similar challenges with water at the hospital.

“If it had been a short, isolated thing and it was just me, I could accept that, but the fact that patients today will be going into that same room or that same set of rooms and having the same problems, that I grappled with.

“And having their very expensive, very difficult bone marrow transplant process put at risk because of such a simple thing as not providing suitable hot water, it just seems a crazy thing to be doing, a crazy thing to be allowing to continue for so long,” he said.

HNZ spokesman Chris Cardwell said in a statement he acknowledged the patient’s experience and accepted that “we did not deliver the quality of care we aspire to”.

“We recognise patient hygiene is an integral part of patient care and at times this has been challenging due to water-related issues,” he said.

‘Contingencies in place’

Cardwell said when HNZ became aware of the water heating and pressure issues in 2023, it triggered investigations and “critical planned maintenance and investment” work was carried out, including the partial replacement of the heating plant in mid-2024.

“The project work did not fully meet expectations, meaning that remedial work to resolve water pressure issues is ongoing,” he said.

Cardwell said while maintenance work continued, there were contingencies in place to minimise disruptions to patients.

“We endeavour to relocate patients within the ward where possible, or offer alternate shower facilities,” he said.

Several water leaks have occurred at Auckland hospitals recently. Photo / Michael Craig

On January 29, a water outage in the hospital’s main building – building 32 – for more than 12 hours affected the hospital’s emergency department, inpatient wards, operating theatres, and Starship children’s hospital’s emergency department and cardiac ward.

Cardwell said the shutdown was because of a “pipe fracturing and an absence of control valves”.

He said there had been no further leaks in building 32 throughout February.

The risks with the pipes were identified in mid-2022, and were at the time managed through “reactive maintenance processes”, Cardwell said.

He said a detailed, independent engineering review followed and a report was produced in mid-2023, recommending the investigation of long-term solutions.

“With incidents occurring more frequently in 2024, we sought concept designs and independent costings of options for phased remediation works,” he said.

Cardwell said there were several minor leaks throughout last year, with one major leak occurring in July – but would not confirm how many leaks had happened.

He said leaks would have occurred in numerous locations across the hospital and RNZ would need to send an official information request to find out the number.

On February 18, Health Minister Simeon Brown announced $14 million of funding to replace Auckland City Hospital’s pipes, which are more than two decades old.

The minister said the project would take place in three phases, with the first phase expected to take over 13 months.

Cardwell said the tender for the remediation works went live on February 21 and closed on March 7.

HNZ is expecting the works to begin in late April.

HNZ confirmed the $14m is a reallocation of funding from the existing budget within the “facilities infrastructure remediation programme” and will cover only the first phase of the works, while future funding of the project will need to be reviewed after completion of the first phase.

Brown said he would consider advice on the future funding of the project in due course.

HNZ said it was looking at an alternative temporary water supply during this project.

Cardwell said at this stage, HNZ was not expecting any surgeries to be delayed or relocated as a result of repair works.

- RNZ

Sign up to The Daily H, a free newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.