Deaths after emergency room discharge

Aaron Goodwin made this Official Information request to Health New Zealand

This request has had an unusual response, and requires attention from the FYI team.

From: Aaron Goodwin

Dear Health New Zealand,

Please note that I am only requesting figures and not personally identifiable information.

Please provide figures for the following occurrences over a 5 year time period:

1. Patients presenting to a public hospital emergency department that were not admitted to a ward, and whom subsequently died of an ailment related to their presenting complaint within a 24 hour period after discharge

2. The same as request 1, but for patients who were traiged and later decided to leave the waiting room before being evaluated in the emergency department

3. Patients who had concerns relating to chest pain whose patient notes show were dismissed as having anxiety or dismissed as experiencing somatic manifestations who within the next week had an adverse cardiac incident or died as a consequence of cardiac issues

Context: The third example relates to something that happened to me, (which I am happy to declare here fully informed that this request is made public) having been dismissed as anxious and then later found to have had elevated levels of troponin - resulting in a cardiology ward stay. I am interested to know how frequently this type of medical negligence/malpractice is occurring.

Yours faithfully,
Aaron Goodwin

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