Opinion: Remember last week when Te Whatu Ora published junk figures for Northland emergency department wait times?
How they jumped from just 76.5 percent of people seen in the target time of six hours to a glowing but impossible 99.7 percent and they got busted.
"I don’t have that in front of me," said Health NZ CEO Margie Apa.
"But that will be published on the website today."
That was Friday morning... They were finally published around midnight on Friday.
"For Northland, as I reported in The House, that was 78 percent," said Health Minister Ayesha Verrall.
"Which is much more in line with the earlier data - the full data set will be published by Te Whatu Ora today."
Again, wrong - it took another couple of days to publish but 78 percent - at least she had a number.
Though it turns out that number was wrong, too. It's actually 79.2 percent, not 78 percent... but who’s counting anymore?
"I have been very clear that emergency department (ED) performance is an important issue and of concern," said Verrall.
"It’s one of the three priorities I set when I came in as health minister."
One of her three big priorities… so we wanted to know the benchmark. We asked her what the national wait time figure is now...
"What national wait time?" was her response.
"I don't think we report it as an aggregate and all of the figures would be available later today."
Again, no - it took days longer.
And actually yes, they do publish the national figure - 71.8 percent... We asked her if that number is reliable, considering previously published data was found to be incorrect...
"The correct data will be published today," she said.
"I don’t carry a list of every district ED time..."
I reiterated I just wanted to know the national ED wait time...
"The data will be published on the Te Whatu Ora website today," she repeated.
No prizes for guessing if the national data was correct when it was finally fixed and uploaded… yep - you guessed it - it was wrong too.
She said she wouldn't "have a stab at the figures" for fear of being incorrect... But she may as well just have. That seems to be how it’s done anyway.
And now that it has finally published the correct data - allegedly - we can see how many districts were incorrect in the first place.
It wasn’t just Northland.
Of the 25 districts measured. Guess how many matched up?
Just five. Only five of 25 districts had the correct emergency wait time data.
That’s if the new data is to be believed. And there’s the rub right - mistakes like this chip away at trust.
And remember, we’re talking about people. Urgently sick and injured people in need of emergency care. Waiting. Waiting longer than they should.
A priority for the minister we’re told.
Prove it. Give us a reason to trust that you actually mean that.
