Photo: Supplied
The health watchdog has criticised inadequate staffing at Εamaru Hospital's emergency department after investigating the death of an elderly woman.
The 93-year-old was given the wrong amount of saline as a result of a prescribing error in November 2023.
Deputy Health and Disability Commissioner Carolyn Cooper said while she was concerned about the care provided to the woman after multiple errors by different staff, a postmortem found the prescribing error did not cause her death.
"While I acknowledge that individual staff were involved, I consider that the workload at the time meant that staff could not carry out their respective roles adequately," she said.
Cooper found Waitaki District Health Services, which managed t
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