Your rights when you use DHB services
Your rights
When you use our services you are protected by a number of rights. Our staff will provide you with information about your rights during your contact with us.
If you feel we have not respected your rights you can take your concern or complaint to:
- The Team Leader of the Mental Health Service you are using
- The Wairarapa DHB Quality & Risk Manager - phone 06 946 9880
- Health and Disability Commissioner's Office. They respond to concerns and complaints related to the Code of Health and Disability Services Consumers Rights - Phone 0800 11-22-33
- Privacy Commissioner - Privacy Hotline enquiries 0800 803 909
- See weblinks below
Information about your healthcare
We maintain our policy that your personal information is held in confidence. Information collected about you will be used for:
- Monitoring and providing ongoing healthcare for you
- Training of health professionals
- Health research in a manner which does not reveal your identity
- Administration data collection
- Sharing with your primary health provider (usually your GP) on
discharge from hospital.
- Any purposes directly related to any of the above or to prevent or lessen any serious or imminent threat to your life or health or that of another individual, or to public health or safety
- Release where we are legally obliged to do so
Teaching Hospital
Wairarapa DHB - Wairarapa Hospital is a teaching hospital, and some of the health professionals you meet will be in training. You will always be asked for your consent BEFORE a student is involved in your care.
You have the right to decline student involvement, and this will not prejudice your care in any way.
Advocacy & Support Services You Can Use
When you use our services you can have family member(s) or friends with you to support you if you wish. You can also contact some local services listed below for support and advice.
Te Whare Atawhai (Consumer Drop-in Centre)
Provides advocacy, support and links to other consumer networks/social activities.
35 Perry Street, Masterton
Phone: (06) 370-8993
Email: dropin@xtra.co.nz
SF Wairarapa - Mental Illness Family Support
Offers support and advocacy to families and whanau of people experiencing any major mental illness.
323 Queen Street, Masterton
Phone: (06) 377-3081
Advocacy Network Services
This service provides Maori, non Maori and Pacific Island advocates - who will offer you support and advice regarding any concerns or questions you may have about your rights when using health services.
PO Box 2116, Masterton
Phone: (06) 370-8870
National organisations
Privacy Commissioner - Privacy Act 1993
Website: www.privacy.org.nz
The online Office of the Privacy Commissioner, an independent Crown entity established by the Privacy Act provides a full guide to the specific functions of the Commissioner and the practical applications of the Privacy Act in the workplace, medic and life of the individual citizen.
Health and Disability Commissioner
Website: www.hdc.org.nz
The Health and Disability Commissioner Act 1994 is a key element in the new environment of consumer-focused and consumer-accountable health and disability services and has become the primary vehicle for dealing with complaints about any health or disability services provider in New Zealand.
The purpose of the Act is expressed as being "to promote and protect the rights of health consumers and disability services consumers, and, to that end, to facilitate the fair, simple, speedy, and efficient resolution of complaints relating to infringements of those rights" (s6). This objective is achieved through the implementation of a Code of Rights, the establishment of a complaints process to ensure enforcement of those rights and the ongoing education of providers and consumers.