Family says woman died after hospital told her she faced a 25-hour wait

A grieving family is seeking answers about what their loved one was told about waiting times at Palmerston North Hospital before she walked out and died hours later while going to get help at another hospital.

Briar Parfitt, 40, died on Saturday afternoon in a car next to her teenage daughter while the pair were heading to Hawke's Bay Hospital.

Parfitt's family say she chose to leave Palmerston North Hospital after she was told she faced a 25-hour wait, although Health NZ has said the average wait on Saturday was only two hours, and the emergency department was staffed sufficiently to meet demand.

Speaking at Parfitt's family home in Feilding on Wednesday - where family and friends were gathering to pay their respects while Parfitt's body lay in a pink coffin - her father Colin Adkins was struggling to come to terms with what happened.

He said Parfitt, who suffered from constant pain stemming from an operation that went wrong seven years ago, was taken by ambulance to Palmerston North Hospital's emergency department about midday on Saturday. Parfitt suffered from complex regional pain syndrome, and was a regular visitor to hospital for relief.

Parfitt - who was there with her daughter - was told there would be a wait of more than a day to be seen, so she returned home, where for a time she seemed better, Adkins said.

But it was agreed by mid-afternoon that she needed looking at, so the family decided to take her to Hawke's Bay Hospital in Hastings, where they believed she would be seen more quickly.

Her daughter was driving Parfitt when she became unresponsive in the passenger seat of their car when heading over Ruahine Range.

They stopped in Woodville, about 20 minutes from Palmerston North, and an ambulance was called, but Parfitt could not be revived. An autopsy took place over the weekend and the family were now waiting for its results.

In a statement, Health NZ interim group director of operations for MidCentral Kath Fraser-Chapple said Palmerston North Hospital's emergency department was "fully staffed to meet demand" on Saturday afternoon, where the average wait time was two hours.

"Heath New Zealand is aware an individual died after earlier attending Palmerston North Hospital ED on Saturday afternoon. We would like to offer our sympathies to their family," she said.

"Records show that the patient arrived around midday by ambulance and was triaged on arrival. The patient was called for assessment within 90 minutes of being triaged, but was not in the waiting room. They were called again 45 minutes later and again were not present."

Fraser-Chapple said the death had been referred to the coroner.

Health NZ has said it had nothing further to add to its statement. Radio NZ asked what the longest waiting time was at Palmerston North Hospital's emergency department on Saturday, and whether it would investigate what happened.

Adkins said if his daughter knew her wait would be short, she would have stayed at the Palmerston North Hospital emergency department.

"I think it's bloody disgusting. It's my daughter - I've lost my daughter. It's like they're playing Russian roulette with people's lives."

Parfitt's pain was so bad she was taking a controlled mix of THC and methadone, but that was not always enough.

Adkins said just last week the family were talking about the death of a patient in a toilet at Waikato Hospital.

"We felt so sorry, not only for the person who died, but the family and what they're going through, not even to realise at that point that we'd be going through the same thing a week later."

Adkins would like to see improvements to the health system, because too many families were losing people.

Adkins said Parfitt - a mother of five - had helped other family members through medical problems.

The family was booked to go to Fiji in six weeks, something Parfitt was looking forward to.

"Now there's going to be an empty seat on the plane."

If the family do go, they will take Parfitt's ashes with them.