Six Southerners suffered vision loss in 2017-18 due to administrative shortcomings in the Southern District Health Board’s ophthalmology department.
However, the SDHB says recommendations from reports into serious shortcomings in both its ophthalmology and urology services have almost all been implemented and the services are improving.
Those two departments have endured a torrid couple of years with multiple serious adverse events and critical Health and Disability Commissioner findings, and each were subject to critical reviews.
In its recently released annual report, the SDHB said it had either implemented or made progress on most of the recommendations in the reviews.
Ophthalmology has been the department most in the spotlight, with failings in the service leading to some patients losing vision.
From a high of 30 reported adverse events relating to ophthalmology in 2015-16, the SDHB reported eight ophthalmology adverse events in 2017-18 — six related to delay in follow-up, and two to clinical processes.
The six administrative errors included an appointment notification being sent to the patient’s son rather than the patient, a follow-up appointment being cancelled and not rescheduled, and a follow-up appointment form not being handed to administrative staff.
All six incidents meant the patient concerned lost some of their sight.
The two clinical issues involved injections where there was a known degree of risk and some harm to the patient had happened.
Waiting lists had been a major issue for ophthalmology, and an independent firm was brought in last year to help ease the backlog.
"The number of those waiting for longer than 1.5 times the recommended timeframe has now been reduced to zero at Southland Hospital for several months, and significantly reduced at Dunedin Hospital, reaching zero on occasions," the report said.
"However, we need to finalise the configuration of the service so that we can cope with ongoing volume growth without having to depend on external providers, and we will need to periodically reassess the service, as we are projecting that demand for follow-up appointments will continue to increase."
Urology hit the headlines in 2017 after concerns were raised about staffing levels, resourcing and quality of care.
Dunedin Hospital also had huge waiting lists for elective and outpatient care.
The report said several patients were treated in two "super clinics" at the end of 2017 and a new system streamlined outpatient clinics and reduced the number of outpatient visits.
"This led to implementing changes to a number of processes, to enable more appointments and surgeries through better management of staff time and theatre capacity, and better arranging our clinics so that a patient who requires a procedure that can be done in outpatients will receive it as part of the appointment, rather than come back on another day — enabling the outpatient clinics to operate as a ‘one-stop-shop’."
An additional urology nurse was appointed last year and the department was still trying to recruit a half-time consultant urologist and a full-time registrar.
"In the meantime, the department will employ locum urologists when needed, and the department’s senior medical officers are working additional clinic hours."
Urology had no adverse events in 2017-18. It had two the previous year.
