Woman wheeled herself to hospital when ambulance couldn't take her wheelchair

Monday, 18 July 2022

Lawyer and disability advocate Huhana Hickey wheeled herself to hospital after ambulance staff couldn’t take her wheelchair.

A disabled woman with Covid-19 symptoms and a multiple sclerosis flare-up says she waited 12 hours for an ambulance and when it finally arrived, paramedics couldn’t take her to hospital. So she wheeled herself there.

Dr Huhana Hickey (Ngāti Tāhinga, Whakatōhea), who is a highly regarded disability advocate and sits on a number of regional and national health boards, was admitted to Middlemore Hospital after arrival, and also tested positive for Covid-19.

When she was discharged five days later, Hickey had to wheel herself home because there weren’t any shuttles or taxis available to accommodate her wheelchair.

She said the experience left her feeling “bloody angry”.

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Huhana Hickey said phone calls from health providers are not enough.

St John Ambulance is defending its actions, saying the service had appropriately prioritised Hickey’s calls and had carried out several welfare checks until an ambulance became available. The organisation said its ambulance service could not transport wheelchairs.

On learning this, Hickey had no choice but to cancel the service.

This incident comes amid growing concern about the state of the nation's health system as wait times blow out and GPs close their books.

Hickey’s doctor ordered the ambulance after she became increasingly unwell.

Hickey, who doesn’t live far from the hospital, was alone at the time because her wife and carer were both isolating elsewhere after testing positive for Covid-19.

Her wife was also recovering from a surgery.

The ambulance was called on the afternoon of July 5.

“I knew that they would be awhile because we had been told, but 12 hours later, they showed up at midnight and I had been in my wheelchair that whole time waiting,” Hickey said.

Hickey says wheelchairs are vital for disabled New Zealanders who use them. (File photo)

Three young paramedics then walked into her home, Hickey said, and told her they didn’t believe what the doctor was saying.

St John Ambulance is seeing its workload soar, particularly in Auckland, due to the Omicron outbreak.

“We think that you’re OK, and you can wheel down to the hospital in the rain tonight because we can’t take you,” Hickey recounted the conversation.

When she asked why they wouldn’t take her, Hickey said the paramedics told her they were unable to take her wheelchair.

In the end, Hickey cancelled the ambulance and wheeled herself to Middlemore Hospital the next day when it wasn’t raining. She was admitted and also tested positive for Covid-19.

“I’m bloody angry … I sit on several committees here at Middlemore, and I’m involved in the disability networks and the new ministry and a bunch of other health stuff,” Hickey said.

“We developed a disability Covid plan, all of that, and every single piece of it failed in my case – when I came in February with a fever, and when I came in [July 5] – because they haven’t implemented what they were told to implement.”

In a statement, St John said it had appropriately prioritised Hickey’s calls and clinical teams had carried out several welfare checks until an ambulance became available.

“It’s important to note that St John ambulances are not equipped to transport wheelchairs when transporting patients and that, in this instance, the ambulance was later cancelled by the caller,” said the St John district operations manager Auckland, Glenn Metcalfe.

The child was taken to hospital after being injured by a dog.

Like the rest of the health sector, St John was facing extremely high demand with the flu, Covid-19 and other illnesses putting pressure on the system.

“St John has and will continue to implement several measures to manage the impact of the demand on our emergency ambulance service, including prioritising the most life-threatening calls first and our clinical teams carrying out welfare checks over the phone on patients awaiting an ambulance response.”

However, Metcalfe said St John wanted to reassure the public that everyone would receive the emergency and acute care they required, with the potential for delays regarding non-urgent and non-life threatening calls.

Hickey said she knew the ambulance service would be under pressure, so waited patiently while receiving welfare phone calls every 20 minutes.

If she had known St John couldn’t take her wheelchair, Hickey said she would have tried to find help elsewhere.

“People don’t understand that wheelchairs are vital, not just for walking or wheeling, but also for the pressure sores we develop and for all the other things that happen if our chair is not with us at the hospital,” she said.

“Therefore I had no choice but to decline.”

Hickey said both St John and Middlemore Hospital had wheelchair shuttles, and there should have been a contingency plan in place for physically disabled people needing to get to the hospital during a pandemic.

One solution could have been to provide funding to community-based taxi and van services which were able to transport wheelchairs, said Hickey.

But in this case, Hickey said it was the ambulance’s job to get to her to hospital safely.

“I’d already waited 12 hours, I would’ve waited hours longer if they had a solution. I declined because I was sick, I was exhausted, and I couldn’t cope with that situation.”

Upon her release from hospital, Hickey said she faced more problems with transport and ended up wheeling herself home.

In a nutshell, she said there was no safe pathway to transfer a significantly disabled person to and from the hospital in an emergency.