KEY POINTS:
Southland District Health Board (SDHB) says it will respond in due course to a mother who says she waited six hours at Southland Hospital for her eight-year-old daughter to be treated before leaving in disgust.
Wendy Bray, of Drummond, 38km northwest of Invercargill, said she believed her daughter, Tamara, who injured her toe while playing on a fence last month, would have received better treatment from a veterinarian.
She drove to Southland Hospital's emergency department on February 22 after Tamara split the webbing beside her small toe, arriving about 3.30pm.
When Tamara hadn't been treated for her bleeding toe by 9.30pm, she left, seeking treatment elsewhere, even trying the Winton maternity unit to see if a doctor there could stitch the toe, she told The Southland Times.
Mrs Bray said her daughter eventually received eight stitches in her toe just after 1am at Gore Hospital.
She claimed the delay meant the stitches hadn't taken and Tamara had to return to Gore - a round-trip of 164km - twice a week for further treatment.
Mrs Bray said she'd written to several different agencies to complain about they way they'd been treated at Southland Hospital and had received replies from the Commissioner for Children and the Health and Disabilities Commissioner, among others, but nothing from SDHB.
SDHB interim chief operating officer Leanne Samuel confirmed today the board was investigating the incident.
She was unable to confirm when Mrs Bray's complaint had been received, but told NZPA it was going through "due process".
"It's under investigation and we would reply back to the family when we've completed (inquiries)," Ms Samuel said.
"It's going through our process, which is standard process, and I can't comment on what she may have received from other organisations. I'm not privy to that information," she said.
"We take it through our process and will respond accordingly."
- NZPA
