‘Mum left world feeling she was just a nuisance’

MOTHER’S DAY earlier this month was a poignant time for Donna Edge, as she reflected on the death of her mother, Elizabeth Steer. 145061AD

By Grant Johnston

Ohaupo resident Donna Edge wonders if the anger she feels at the treatment of her mother in her final few months by the health system will ever heal.

While Mrs Edge is grateful for the efforts of her mum’s GP, Hillcrest Pharmacy and Hospice Waikato, she says she will find it hard to forgive the bureaucratic bungling which saw her mum’s final few months turned into a fiasco.

Elizabeth Steer (74) was referred to Waikato Hospital on January 27 this year by her GP as she had been off her food since early January and was quite weak. After being taken to hospital in an ambulance she was seen by four doctors between 3pm and 4am, over a 13-hour period, where she waited in a corridor for a bed to become available.

She was to have a scan the next day, but because it was Anniversary Weekend it was not done. She next saw a doctor five days later on February 1, when she was discharged (without a scan having been taken).

When her own GP was contacted by the family he arranged for a private scan, but because of Waitangi weekend she could not be fitted in until February 8. She had to be put on a drip the night before by her GP to give her the energy to make it to the scan.

After her scan, Mrs Steer was transported by ambulance to Waikato Hospital where, after a seven hour wait in an A and E cubicle, a doctor informed her that the scan had shown spots on the liver, but another scan would be needed from a different angle. She was released home after an MRI scan the following day and returned to hospital for a biopsy on February 14.

This revealed suspected liver cancer, but no treatment could be suggested until after the weekly meeting with the oncology department on February 22. The family all arranged to be on hand to hear the news from the meeting, but when no call was received they contacted the hospital to be told the doctor could not see them until February 27.

“I was furious. I rang back and spoke to the doctor’s nurse and said we needed answers. Mum was deteriorating rapidly and I did not think she would make Monday as we just could not get her to eat,” Mrs Edge says.

The doctor contacted them to say that the meeting could not be any earlier, but he was able to inform them Mrs Steer had liver cancer, a secondary cancer, and that she had had cancer on her bowel for about two years.

At the meeting on February 27 the family was told that the growths on her liver had taken over and only 5% of her liver remained - the medical professionals had never seen anything like it.

“They gave her two weeks to live. Mum died that Friday (March 3).”

Mrs Edge says an accurate diagnosis sooner would not have changed the outcome, but they would have had more time to do the final things that needed to be done.

“Mum left this world feeling very unimportant and that she was just a nuisance to the medical people. She was always very caring and comforting around sick people herself, and although she got that from her family, she was let down by the medical profession at a time when she was facing her scariest moment,” Mrs Edge says.