A United Nations worker in Fiji who has contracted the Delta variant of the coronavirus will be brought into New Zealand and treated at an Auckland-area hospital
A hospitalised Covid-19 case from Fiji is arriving in New Zealand later today, the Ministry of Health has confirmed.
The person is an employee of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and has been on a ventilator in Fiji. UN officials, including people in Geneva and New York, had put in the request for the person to be transferred from Suva, according to former UNDP administrator Helen Clark.
"I commend the tremendous leadership of Counties Manukau DHB on this. They have a first class team - [the patient] is coming to one of the best places in New Zealand for intensive care," the former Prime Minister told Newsroom.
"Given their record, I have total faith in Middlemore’s protocols to care for this patient and keep staff safe. It’s a fantastic outcome for the family and the UN is very appreciative."
When asked whether she had intervened to ensure the person was admitted to New Zealand, Clark said only, "There were many voices trying to make this happen."
A ministry spokesperson said that a transfer plan had been drawn up which "takes into consideration the safety of both the patient and the crew who will be transporting the patient".
The decision to admit them appears to be an about-face for the Ministry of Health, which put out a statement on Wednesday night saying the air transfer application had been denied.
"A planned air transfer of a patient with Covid-19 requiring hospital-level care has been declined following advice from the Intensive Care Unit directors of the three Auckland metro DHBs that given other commitments there is not sufficient capacity to currently take the patient," a spokesperson for the ministry said at the time.
This was despite the fact that the Government agreed to the transfer in a missive to the UN prior to Wednesday night. The transfer was delayed as officials then scrambled to find a bed for the Covid-19 case. The ministry spokesperson said it was still unclear which Auckland-area hospital would receive the person.
"While this request was initially declined for capacity reasons, the fluidity of the situation at the metro-Auckland DHB ICUs determined this treatment can be provided. The region will continue to work closely together to manage capacity issues," the spokesperson said in a new statement on Thursday morning.
Many hospitals in New Zealand are operating under "code red" or "code black" protocols, Newsroom understands, as they struggle with the burden of a wave of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) cases.
Doctors at Middlemore Hospital had opposed the application over fears that the Delta variant could spread within the hospital, that the patient could themselves contract RSV and that there simply wasn't the time or resources to care for the person.
Fiji is in the midst of a major Covid-19 outbreak driven by the Delta variant. The country of 900,000 has had more than 25,000 cases in the latest outbreak and 200 deaths. There are likely to be many more undetected cases, however, as more than a quarter of the tests Fiji conducted in the last week have returned positive results.
