Patient advocate Melissa Vining said HNZ’s assertion on Monday that 90% of patients were being treated on time was irresponsible and disappointing.
HNZ acknowledged yesterday the 90% figure only referred to patients receiving radiation treatment and not those receiving other interventions such as surgery, and apologised for the confusion.
It acknowledged 72% of patients were receiving treatment within a two-month timeframe, which is a decline.
Mrs Vining said the figures did not show how long patients were waiting to be seen by a specialist before being waitlisted for treatment.
While the target timeframe to see a specialist was four weeks, she knew of many instances where people had received letters advising of 12-week waits, she said.
The 90% figure was "very misleading" when people were waiting three months to be seen.
"The clinical harm occurs to the patient if there is a delay in accessing the first specialist appointment."
HNZ said yesterday the 90% figure referred to the waiting time after a patient had their first specialist appointment and before radiation treatment started.
The RNZ interview in which it was given was largely referencing radiation treatment, it said.
In a later statement issued, it apologised for any confusion caused.
The target timeframe for a patient who has seen a specialist to begin treatment is 62 days.
Figures supplied to the Otago Daily Times showed this target was met on average 75.6% of the time in Southern in the second half of last year, lagging behind the goal of 90%.
HNZ said yesterday the figure so far this year was 72.6%.
Mrs Vining said she had been told it was 70%, and said it was very disappointing, although there were no longer patients receiving treatment for gynaecological or brain cancers, skewering the data compared with last year.
"The main point people need to understand is the hospital staff are doing the very best they can, but when the people in charge of the system — Te Whatu Ora — can’t get their numbers straight and can’t acknowledge that people are unnecessarily waiting, that ‘nothing to see here, 90% of patients are getting their treatment on time’ is very very misleading.
"Unfortunately Te Whatu Ora is not being transparent and honest with what they’re presenting, which is creating confusion and concern for the public."
She also criticised HNZ for another misleading claim— made in the same RNZ interview — that it had met all critical elements of a damning Health and Disability Commissioner (HDC) report released in April.
The report found hundreds of people in Otago and Southland suffered harm as calls to address dire waiting times were ignored, and gave HNZ until Tuesday this week to report back on improvements.
One recommendation was better communication with patients, keeping them informed about wait times and when these were outside current recommendations.
Mrs Vining said she could see from a number of patient letters that amendments had not been made.
"The DHB contacted me [yesterday] to acknowledge that unfortunately, they thought the letters had been changed but they hadn’t."
Her husband Blair Vining, who died of bowel cancer in 2019, received a 12-week-wait letter in 2018, when he had been given up to eight weeks to live.
HNZ said yesterday it would update letters to provide more information from today.
A HNZ spokeswoman said it had established a patient liaison system to improve contact and support, as recommended.
It had taken action over the last six months to reduce "actual or perceived disparities" in patient access to cancer services, such as forming the National Radiation Oncology working group and working on a regional and inter-regional model of care.
Radiation oncology waiting times and workforce vacancies were nationwide problems, although it acknowledged the distress this caused, the spokeswoman said.
A HDC spokeswoman confirmed HNZ provided its response yesterday.
"The responses will require our full consideration and we anticipate it may take us some time to review them."
