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The son of a dying man had to take emergency legal action against the health authorities in order to spend a last day with his terminally ill father.
Things He understands that the emergency court action allowed Oliver Christiansen to spend a little more than 24 hours with his father, retired Superior Court Judge Tony Chrstiansen, before the older man died of a brain tumor.
Oliver Christian’s lawyer Simon Foote QC says the judge’s decision was very important to his client’s family.
“The comfort everyone gets from being together at the end of a family member’s life simply cannot be underestimated.”
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Foote said that while the judge’s ruling allowed Christiansen to leave the mandatory 14-day isolation for early arrivals abroad, he expected authorities to exercise their discretion in the future.
“Something went wrong at the Ministry of Health. They are certainly under great pressure and, for the most part, they are doing a great job of trying to keep everyone safe, but they seem to have misunderstood the discretion they have.”
Oliver Christiansen lives in London and flew back to New Zealand on April 23 because his father was terminally ill and was in hospice care at home.
POOL VISION
Dr. Ashley Bloomfield says the fact that there are no new Covid-19 cases on Monday is just a “point in time” and not a reason to loosen up.
At the time, the medical advice was that her father was weeks old and that Christiansen could still fire, once Christiansen completed his mandatory 14 days of self-isolation at a central Auckland hotel.
However, the next day, his father’s condition worsened and medical specialists reviewed his father’s life expectancy, which is likely to last between one and three days.
Christiansen initially wrote to the Ministry of Health on April 24 asking him to get out of the forced quarantine. He had no symptoms, was being monitored by medical professionals every other day, and despite repeatedly requesting a Covid-19 test, he had been rejected.
Christiansen asked the authorities to use their discretion for compassionate reasons.
Instead, authorities responded that they could only excuse Christiansen if he had a medical condition that could not be treated in isolation and that “there is nothing we can change at this time.”
The next day, Christiansen responded to authorities, imploring them to observe his “exceptional circumstances”.
He told authorities that his father had begun to ask “Where is my son, where is my son?”
The following day, Christiansen also wrote directly to the Director General of Health, Ashley Bloomfield, and to the Minister of Health, David Clark.
Blomfield responded, saying that authorities were investigating the case.
However, Christiansen was rejected again.
She then decided to take her case to the Auckland High Court for a judge to review her situation.
Judge Tracey Walker heard the case on Friday and allowed Christiansen to visit her father.
It found that the authorities had interpreted the rules strictly, based on the criteria available on the Government’s Covid-19 website, and had not used their powers of discretion.
“It had the hallmark of circumscribed criteria-based automatic rejection rather than an adequate exercise of discretion required by the Health (Managed Air Arrivals) Act,” said Judge Walker.
The judge said that important decision-making authorities cannot simply adopt rigid rules that prevent them from exercising discretion.
Stuff-co-nz
Judge Tracey Walker found in favor of a man who wanted to see his dying father.
“No matter how necessary or justified the Covid-19 response is, the decisions must have a clear and secure basis,” he said.
“They must be proportionate to the justified goal of protecting New Zealand taking into account the fundamental civil rights in question: freedom of movement and assembly under the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act of 1990.”
The judge said Christiansen had no Covid-19 symptoms. He had also been monitored by medical professionals every other day and had repeatedly requested a Covid-19 test, but was rejected because he was asymptomatic.
She noted that her father was being cared for at home, and therefore health professionals and other patients were not at risk.
Christiansen’s attorney, Simon Foote QC, told the court that his client’s mother and sisters “desperately” supported his offer.
Judge Walker ordered Christiansen to travel in a private car and to wear full PPE while visiting his father.
“It is difficult to imagine more compassionate reasons than those presented here,” he said.
Foote said Things Christiansen had given the authorities all the information they needed to make a compassionate exemption.
“He handed them to them on a tray. The medical evidence was unequivocal, that his father would die before he was released from controlled isolation.”
Foote said Christiansen’s time with his father was “invaluable.”
“These end-of-life situations are perhaps the most tragic consequences of the pandemic because, of course, they are final. There are many dire consequences, of people losing business, but there is no way to rewind or revisit the circumstances of the end. of the life “.
The Ministry of Health has been contacted for comment.
