Work has begun on gathering information to allow the Otago District Health Board to proceed with an urgent investigation into concerns raised by general practitioners about access to colonoscopies at Dunedin Hospital.
In a brief statement on Friday, Health Minister Tony Ryall called for an urgent report into concerns raised by the GPs.
He had nothing to add to that yesterday.
A question about whether there might be similar concerns in other parts of the country to those expressed by the Otago GPs remains unanswered by his office at this stage.
Yesterday morning, board chief executive Brian Rousseau said he had yet to receive the National Health Index numbers to identify the patients involved in the cases highlighted by 26 doctors who took part in an informal survey of GPs conducted by South Link Health.
This would allow the board to check the referral records against the information provided in the survey.
South Link Health executive director Prof Murray Tilyard said yesterday afternoon the NHI numbers were coming in and would be forwarded to the board as they arrived.
The doctors raised issues about 51 patients.
Thirty-one of the patients for which doctors had listed concerns about colonoscopy access were later found to have bowel or rectal cancer.
Some had since died.
Since the story about the doctors' concerns went public on Saturday, the Otago Daily Times has received a variety of responses from patients.
Some have praised the work of the hospital, others questioned their access to colonoscopies.
Several raised issues about the length of time required to wait for surveillance colonoscopies.
The board decided in September 2007 that because of demand for diagnostic colonoscopies it could no longer meet the national guidelines for surveillance colonoscopies.
One 30-year-old woman affected by the surveillance colonoscopy guidelines introduced by the board said she had been told she was supposed to have surveillance colonoscopies every three years after having a pre-cancerous polyp removed in 2002 in Australia.
She had not received one since returning from Australia despite being referred to Dunedin Hospital by her GP in 2004-05 because of symptoms which could have been related to bowel cancer.
She had now been advised she would not receive one until 2011, a situation she described as ridiculous.
If bowel cancer was detected quickly it was readily treated.
Not offering surveillance colonoscopies was false economy.
"Surveillance colonoscopies actually reduce drains on hospital resources by preventing patients getting to the point where they require chemotherapy or radiotherapy or other treatments," she said.
She said she could not afford to get a colonoscopy at a private hospital and it was a matter of keeping her fingers crossed that she was all right.
