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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.
Since the case came to light, the Prime Minister has asked the Ministry of Health to review all cases of quarantined family members who are denied permission to visit dying family members.
Oliver Christian’s lawyer, Simon Foote QC, 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.
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“The comfort everyone gets from being together at the end of a family member’s life simply cannot be underestimated.”
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.
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 took 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.
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.
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 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 definitive.
“There are many dire consequences, of people losing business, but there is no way to rewind or revisit circumstances at the end of life.”
As of April 30, 24 requests had been received to visit a dying or near-dead relative, a spokesman for the prime minister said.
None of those requests has been granted.
“The Prime Minister has spoken to the Minister of Health tonight and has asked that each of these cases be reviewed now in light of the Court’s decision.”
The Health Ministry did not comment on whether it had apologized to the Christiansen family.
Instead, the spokeswoman said that each request for an isolation permit for compassionate or exceptional reasons is considered on its individual merits.
“The fact that the Court has decided to intervene in this case does not mean that it adopts the same approach with respect to other decisions of the Ministry not to allow isolation to come out.”
She said the Ministry is reviewing its processes to consider license applications for compassionate and exceptional reasons to prevent this problem from arising again.
