Dear Ministry of Health,

According to section 31(5) of the Health and Disability Services (Safety) Act 2001:

A person certified to provide health care services of any kind must promptly give the Director-General written notice of—
(a) any incident or situation (for example, a fire, flood, or failure of equipment or facilities) that has put at risk, may have put at risk, puts at risk, or may be putting at risk the health or safety of people for whom the person was or is providing the services; and
(b) any investigation commenced by a constable into any aspect of the services, their provision, or any premises in which they were provided; and
(c) any death of a person to whom the person was providing the services, or occurring in any premises in which they were provided, that is required to be reported to a coroner under the Coroners Act 2006.

The Act defines the Director-General as the CE of the Ministry. The Ministry being the Ministry of Health.

According to the MoH website, critical incidents are to be reported "to the Ministry of Health as soon as practical within 24 hours", using the Critical Incident Reporting Form. https://www.health.govt.nz/our-work/disa...

I am requesting copies of ALL critical incidents reported to the MoH by Waikato DHB, between 1 January 2018 to 26 July 2021.

I also request copies of ALL critical incidents reported to the MoH in which the critical incident occurred at Waikato DHB, yet was submitted by another agency or person, between 1 January 2018 to 26 July 2021.

I ask that you please redact personal information about patients, to protect their identity. I request that the documents be in electronic form, submitted through FYI.org.nz.

I ask that my request not be transferred to Waikato DHB, as I am only interested in the documents submitted to the Ministry of Health in accordance with the Act. If Waikato DHB has not submitted any critical incident forms to the Ministry of Health during that time period, as mandated under section 31 of the Act, then please say so. If no person or other agency has submitted any incident reports during that time period, which involved Waikato DHB, then please say so.

I note that if the MoH has received such incident reports, they are mandated to keep them for a minimum of 25 years under the Public Records Act. In the event that incident reports, which involved Waikato DHB, were submitted to the MoH and yet are no longer held by the MoH, then I request the name of the agency who holds those documents.

Thanks.

Amy S Van Wey Lovatt, PhD

Dear OIA Requests,

Thank you for your response; however I am quite confused by it. It is not my intent to be vexatious. I am only trying to obtain information, as is my right under the OIA and section 14 of the NZ Bill of Rights.

On 26 July 2021, I requested the following:
(1) copies of ALL critical incidents reported to the MoH by Waikato DHB, between 1 January 2018 to 26 July 2021.
(2) copies of ALL critical incidents reported to the MoH in which the critical incident occurred at Waikato DHB, yet was submitted by another agency or person, between 1 January 2018 to 26 July 2021.

I asked that you please redact personal information about patients, to protect their identity. I requested that the documents be in electronic form, submitted through FYI.org.nz.

Perhaps there has been some confusion in the understanding of my request, and I ask under section 13 of the OIA for your assistance to find the requested information.

I am seeking copies of all reported incidents or situations “that has put at risk, may have put at risk, puts at risk, or may be putting at risk the health or safety of people for whom the person was or is providing the services” or “any investigation commenced by a constable into any aspect of the services, their provision, or any premises in which they were provided” which were reported to the MoH by any persons or agencies, which involved Waikato DHB, between 1 January 2018 to 26 July 2021.

The information I request is information which must be reported to the MoH pursuant to section 31(5) of the Health and Disability Services (Safety) Act 2001. The information I request is information which must be reported by any persons who provide “provide health care services of any kind”, which would include DHBs and employees of DHBs, according to section 31(5) of the Act.

As I have requested that all personal information be redacted, section 9(2)(a) is not a legitimate reason for refusing my request.

Again, I request your assistance in obtaining the requested information. If there is any ambiguity or misunderstanding, I request that you please contact me so that I do not appear vexatious. Like I said, I only want the information that has been reported to the MoH pursuant to section 31(5) of the Act, which involves incidents with Waikato DHB. To protect individuals privacy, I have asked for the MoH to redact any personal identification information.

Yours sincerely,

Amy S Van Wey Lovatt

Dear OIA Requests,

I also forgot to mention in my response that Rebecca Chivers, of the Office of the Ombudsman, advised me to submit a new OIA request to the MoH for the documented incidents at Waikato DHB - the incidents reported to the Director General pursuant to the aforementioned Act. Thus, I do not think the Ombudsman would be impressed if the MoH treated their recommendations as vexatious.

Further, on 27 July 2021, I was advised by Antony, at the Ministry of Health, to repeat my request in writing. I recorded this phone conversation and will be pleased to send this recorded conversation to you. I have not made it public since it includes private information about me.

Again, I do not think the Ombudsman would be impressed if the MoH considered my request for information to be vexatious, when the MoH advised me to make the request for this information in writing on 27 July 2021.

Regards,

Amy S Van Wey Lovatt

Dear OIA Requests,

Correction: The recorded conversation with the MoH was on 26 July 2021, the date I had submitted the request via FYI.org.nz.

Yours sincerely,

Amy S Van Wey Lovatt