The woman has been waiting for answers since an appointment at the Radiology Department at Taranaki Base Hospital in January. File photo. Photo: Gorodenkoff Productions OU / 123RF
A New Plymouth woman says a month-long delay in getting the results of a "semi-urgent" ultrasound left her feeling like a "ticking time bomb".
Health New Zealand has apologised, saying the scan results should have been reported back between 7-10 days, but it was struggling with staff shortages.
The woman - who RNZ has agreed not to identify - visited her GP on 10 January and was advised she needed a "semi-urgent" pelvic ultrasound.
The Radiology Department at Taranaki Base Hospital managed to get her an appointment on 27 January, which she felt was reasonably prompt, but there has been a deafening silence ever since.
"I'm sitting here and I don't know if I've got a 'nasty' or something that's just not as it should be.
"I think it stinks. I'm in limbo. I can't do anything. I can't have any treatment. I don't know if I need treatment, you know?.
"Worst-case scenario I could have a ticking time bomb."
A radiographer herself, the woman said the delay was baffling.
"Everything is digital these days, so images can be sent all around the place.
"A practice in New Plymouth that takes x-rays, and they are digital x-rays, they can be sent to virtually anywhere in New Zealand to be reported on."
Taranaki Base Hospital. Photo: Google Maps
Even staff shortages did not explain it.
"I was told unofficially there was only one radiologist up there. I don't know if that's one radiologist for the whole hospital, I would assume not. Might be just one radiologist reporting ultrasound, I'm not sure. But I was told over the phone 'we've only got one radiologist'. Those were the words.
"Working in the industry you know if you've got a backlog in patient care you do things stop the backlog, so why couldn't they move scans onto somebody else to be reported on?"
The woman made multiple attempts to contact the hospital and her GP asking about her results, but to no avail.
She believed they should have been with her GP within days.
"The job I work in, the company I work for, we say 24 hours for ours to be reported on.
"It is a hospital and they've got a lot going on, but I would've thought a semi-urgent scan should've been reported on within a week."
In a statement, Te Whatu Ora agreed that it should have taken about that long.
"Health New Zealand would like to apologise for the delay in the reporting of the woman's ultrasound results. The time she waited for her results is not acceptable and we are working to reduce these waiting times. The expected reporting time for a semi-urgent pelvic ultrasound is 7-10 days."
It said radiologists were in short supply.
"The radiology reporting services at Taranaki Base Hospital are impacted by a national shortage of radiologists. Health New Zealand is recruiting both permanent and locum radiologists.
"We are utilising external reporting providers to reduce the time patients and GPs are waiting on results and are currently renegotiating to increase our contracts with the external providers."
Health New Zealand advised GPs that if a patient experienced a change in their clinical condition while waiting for their results, the GP should call the duty radiologist directly to speed up delivery of reports.
It apologised again to the woman and said it would continue to explore all options to improve reporting times in the future.
Meanwhile, the woman said she was worried for patients with less knowledge of the healthcare system than her.
"What about poor Mrs Jones who doesn't know how the system works and is sitting there waiting for yonks and, you know, Mrs Jones might have something bad happening to her."
The woman's results eventually arrived at her GPs at the end of February and while she had not been able to discuss them face-to-face, a copy of the report had been forwarded to her.
She has had no direct contact from Health New Zealand.
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