Twenty-five patients incorrectly told they had an STI
Health New Zealand has apologised after 25 Auckland City Hospital patients were incorrectly told that they had a sexually transmitted infection (STI).
Group director of operations, Te Toka Tumai Michael Shepherd said clinical questioning of a result led the organisation to investigate, and the false positive result was identified on June 4.
"Our initial investigation showed that the false positive result was restricted to a single test type and suggested potential contamination in the processing workflow. We identified that four test batches ran between May 23 and June 4 were affected.
"We are undertaking further investigation to identify the root cause, and we have moved the test to different equipment until our investigation is complete."
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Shepherd acknowledged "the distress this incident has caused some patients".
"We have been contacting them and apologising for this," he said.
"We began contacting all affected patients by phone from June 4 and, to date, we have been able to contact directly all but six patients. We continue to try and contact the remaining patients.
No patients were incorrectly advised that they did not have an STI, when they did.
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