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A "confused and agitated" 94-year-old spent almost 17 hours lying in a hospital corridor last week in an incident North Shore Hospital that has described as "embarrassing".
The man's daughter has described the scene as like "Laurel and Hardy" when her father, Bill Hill, lay on a bed in a corridor of the emergency department for more than eight-and-a-half hours before being moved and parked outside a linen cupboard. The war veteran had fallen over in his North Shore home and cut his head.
Hill's traumatic experience came only days before Health and Disability Commissioner Ron Patterson said hospitals remained unacceptably unsafe, two years after he slammed progress on improving services as "slow, patchy and uncoordinated".
In a damning report on Wednes- day, Paterson said the country needed strong leadership and better communication between health providers.
Hill's daughter, Nancy Dudley, told the Herald on Sunday she was shocked by the condition her dad was left in. "I don't see it as an excessive thing to get a bed in a ward with a bit of privacy and dignity. He lost all the dignity the whole day lying in a corridor. I just think that's wrong."
Dudley said her dad had a fall at about 2am on Monday. She accompanied him in the ambulance to hospital where he had three stitches to his head. After the treatment he was wheeled out to a corridor and told to wait for a doctor to assess him.
"They moved him out and put him in the corridor, along with about another dozen patients."
Dudley sat by her father's bedside from 3.30am-7am. She returned to the hospital at noon. "As I came back they were moving him from one corridor to another." His bed was parked outside a curtained linen cupboard.
"Every time someone needed to get into the linen cupboard we had to move," said Dudley.
Dr John Cullen, North Shore Hospital's clinical director for adult health, said the situation was "embarrassing".
"This is not an infrequent occurrence. We have to apologise for things that are out of our control."
Cullen said the hospital was running at virtually 100 per cent capacity in what was proving to be an unseasonably busy summer.
He put the problem down to a lack of beds rather than a staff shortage.
"If a bed's not available, a bed's not available, irrespective of who you are or how old you are." He said that Hill's care and safety had not been compromised by his corridor wait.
Dudley said she blamed the Government for her father's treatment.
"I think it's time the Health Minister woke up and saw there is a problem and did something about it."
Minister of Health David Cunliffe said Waitemata District Health Board was working to improve its situation regarding in-patient bed numbers, and working on providing an additional 28 in-patient beds at North Shore Hospital and 20 extra beds at Waitakere Hospital. He said all DHBs were expected to provide the best possible care for their patients.
Hill, a Scottish immigrant, fought in World War II and was one of 300,000 Allied troops evacuated from Dunkirk in May and June 1940.
OVERCROWDING
North Shore Hospital has been plagued with overcrowding problems, and an inquiry is under way into the care received by four elderly patients admitted to the hospital last winter.
Of the four admitted via the hospital's emergency department, three died.
In 2006, Waitemata DHB had to leave patients recovering from surgery to sleep in the corridors because there were no empty beds. Elderly patients used bedpans in hallways, others slept on medical trolleys and shared pillows in the corridors of the emergency department (ED).
Furious visitors described the conditions as "like a Third World country".
Overcrowding last winter sparked complaints to the Health and Disability Commissioner. At one stage, the ED threatened to shut due to staff shortages.
