Hospital patients left to find own way home

Northland patients are being transferred to hospitals in other areas then left to find their own way home at their own expense, a top level health board meeting has heard.

Northland Health chief executive Karyn McPeake told yesterday's Northland District Health Board meeting that the handling of such patients would be reviewed.

Several board members had raised concerns in the meeting about patients who faced practical and financial difficulties getting home after being transferred from the Far North to Whangarei Hospital or from anywhere in Northland to Auckland hospitals.

Board member Stan Semenoff, a trucking company owner, said he recently had to "send a truck" down to Auckland to give a staff member a ride home after he was transferred to a hospital there.

Mr Semenoff said the man's transport to Auckland was paid for by the health board, but he'd needed help getting back again.

Ms McPeake said Northland's board would not influence other hospitals' decisions on patient care.

She said the health board was not usually told when a Northland patient was discharged in Auckland.

Board member Craig Brown said better protocols were needed.

"It's a national system. I don't care whether they transfer to Auckland or Timbuktu, we can't abdicate our responsibility," Mr Brown said.

While board member Bill Sanderson said he knew Whangarei Hospital staff went to great lengths to make sure patients had a means of getting home, that was not necessarily the case in Auckland.

"I think if people are transferred to Auckland they should be transferred back again," he said.

- NORTHERN ADVOCATE (WHANGAREI)