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New Zealanders who need quick entry to the country to be with dying relatives are frustrated by demands for a life expectancy test.
Some hospitals say that assessing the life expectancy of patients is impossible and will not provide them.
Photo: 123rf.com
MBIE wants the supporting evidence in the applications for an emergency assignment to skip the queue for managed isolation.
But in some cases, hospitals do not provide information on life expectancy, arguing that it is too difficult to tell.
When Kimberley Dreyer’s father was placed in the high dependency unit at Waikato Hospital on life support late last month, she struggled to get from Queensland to be with him.
Based on the emergency allocation criteria brought in the following week, you could request to skip the 10-week queue for managed isolation spaces and begin the process within seven days.
The application was more difficult than expected, when the Ministry of Enterprise, Innovation and Employment requested a letter from a doctor stating his life expectancy.
“My response to them was ‘well, he’s on life support and we’ve been told that immediate family members have been contacted to attend, so I guess it will be any day.’
“But they wanted that in writing. I explained to them that I had spoken to the hospital, which I don’t think anyone should have to do, to ask what my father’s life expectancy was … and they said they wouldn’t.” Not being able to provide that, “he said.
“The doctors I spoke to and some of the hospital directors were quite amazed by the fact that MIQ was asking for details.”
Doctors told him that all they could provide was evidence that he was on life support, in critical condition.
Dreyer began looking for canceled managed isolation reservations herself, and just a day later, her father died.
Hospice New Zealand’s palliative specialist and clinical advisor Rod McLeod hoped the ministry was not getting specific details on life expectancy because “they’re almost always wrong.”
He admitted that it would be difficult for the ministry to find another way to assess the urgency of the requests, but said that many people live much longer than expected or die earlier.
“I think it’s guesswork at best. Life expectancy science isn’t very accurate. I think a lot of people wish it were like that, but estimating life expectancy has so many variables and the last variable is the individual himself, who may want to hold on or let go, “he said.
“Particularly at this time of year, people often want to look forward to special events or special friends or family.”
While the ministry won’t stipulate exactly what life expectancy means, it said that in the best of cases, doctors could estimate whether someone has “days,” “weeks,” or “months.”
Samantha Gallagher also struggled to obtain the life expectancy of her father-in-law, who was in hospice with stage four lung cancer earlier this month while trying to return from Victoria.
“Everybody was saying, ‘Oh, we can’t put a time limit on it. We can’t put a time limit on a life. He’s in stage four, he could pass away tomorrow, he could be two weeks old, there could be three,” he said.
It is the latest in a series of complaints about emergency placement since the criteria were expanded three weeks ago to include people with dying family members, people who need to care for children in unsafe situations, some critical workers and people caught in the limbo of travels.
Yesterday, MBIE admitted that some applications were taking longer than the expected three business days to process, and that could be delayed further if people do not provide supporting details such as the life expectancy of their dying family members.
Davina Stonex, who went through the process to be with her dying mother, was accepted with a letter stating that she had “days or weeks” left.
But he felt there was “a lot of room for improvement” in the way the ministry communicated with applicants about the information it needed.
“When I felt the facts were being overlooked, I started to get to the point where I had to get emotional. I had to express the pain I was feeling and I have a dying mother that I may not be able to see.” she said.
“As grateful as I am that I could be here early, it’s just because I pushed and pushed and pushed.”
In a statement, the ministry said it agreed with the distressing situations of people applying for an emergency assignment.
He said that conscious people with terminal illnesses, such as cancer, could have a significant range in their prognosis from weeks to months or years.
“To facilitate the most urgent visits while our facilities are full, we need to ask this difficult question,” said a spokesperson.
That includes assessing whether applicants would be able to book through the Managed Seclusion Assignment System to see loved ones, which at this stage means waiting until March.
He said treating doctors in general had been able to give advice on that point.
