Health New Zealand Te Whatu Ora (HNZ) yesterday confirmed equipment failed in the hospital’s cath lab — where vital procedures for heart patients are carried out — last week and it was still waiting for a replacement part.
Cardiologist Prof Gerard Wilkins said having access to the lab was vital for cardiac patients and the equipment failing for so long could have fatal consequences.
HNZ confirmed a patient in the cardiac unit died while the lab was down, but said it was too early to say whether the death was linked to the equipment failing.
"We can confirm there was a recent death that occurred on the cardiac unit — the cause of which is unknown — and this has been referred to the coroner in line with our usual processes."
Prof Wilkins said the laboratory was key to delivering the management of anyone having a heart attack.
This meant any outage was serious.
"It poses a substantial risk because if you have no alternative, you have to ship people somewhere else to manage heart attacks and any other dangerous things of that sort.
"If you don’t have that room, you can’t treat a heart attack in an orthodox way.
"Every week, 30 to 50 cases go through that lab and we service from Timaru southwards. We are a regional service."
Among the procedures carried out in the lab are angioplasty, stenting and atherectomy.
Patient care had definitely been affected by the outage, Prof Wilkins said.
"We’ve had to shunt patients to Christchurch and we subsequently have had to hold patients in the hospital longer as we try to manage them without an angiography.
"We are cobbling together kind of a work-around."
Equipment in the catheterisation laboratory, commonly referred to as the cath lab, broke down about a week ago.
The equipment was used to record electrocardiograms and monitor heart pressure during angiography, Prof Wilkins said.
Angiography is a type of X-ray used to check blood vessels.
HNZ Southern chief medical officer David Gow said replacement parts were immediately ordered, and the final part was due to arrive this week.
"We have taken several measures to mitigate the impacts of this equipment fault. Patients awaiting or requiring access to the lab for these coronary procedures have continued to be clinically reviewed and monitored and one acute patient was diverted to Christchurch Hospital."
Dr Gow said while HNZ waited for the final part to arrive, it had managed to temporarily restore the functioning of the cath lab to enable the affected procedures to restart.
"We have since completed 10 angiography procedures in the lab.
"We are continuing to triage patients booked for elective or diagnostic procedures and to date 10 procedures have been deferred."
HNZ had also commissioned the use of the digital subtraction angiography (DSA) lab, so the affected cardiology procedures could continue to be delivered at Dunedin Hospital.
"This means acute patients no longer need to be diverted to Christchurch. To date, three procedures have been completed in the DSA lab."
Prof Wilkins said the equipment failure highlighted the importance of the new Dunedin hospital, where there were plans to have two brand-new cath labs, meaning there would be back-up if one failed.
However, in light of the government’s announcement the project could be scaled back he was unsure if it would still include two labs.
"I’m as much in the dark about the project as anyone."
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti’s office deferred all questions about the cath lab to HNZ.
HNZ said all matters regarding the new Dunedin hospital project were under discussion.
