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Middlemore Hospital says a woman waiting on a Covid-19 test result was able to leave its emergency room after being deemed safe to discharge.
After her release from hospital the woman returned a positive result, leaving health officials scrambling to locate her.
It's the second time within a week Delta has been discovered at the hospital.
Counties Manukau DHB says that the woman was deemed safe to discharge based on her initial presentation to the ED on Wednesday morning.
Chief executive Margie Apa told Checkpoint she is sure the Middlemore Hospital ED team would have done all they could to keep the woman.
Apa said the clinical notes show the woman was asymptomatic and left once the issue she came into hospital for, had been resolved.
"We can't keep people in ED against their will," she said.
"While we would have liked her to have waited, she chose to leave and that's her choice."
When the test came back, health officials scrambled and police officers were dispatched to find the woman, who's now in managed isolation.
Apa said it is not unusual for people to be offered Covid-19 tests, even if they're asymptomatic, like the woman was.
She had two assessments in the ED triage and then in the short stay ward.
The woman arrived at the hospital at about 10am.
Apa says she was moved into the short stay ward at 11.51am and made a decision to leave at about 11.53am. The test was taken then. She left at 11.58am.
The woman's test result came in at 3.15pm, a normal cycle for the labs to get the results back to staff, Apa said.
Auckland Regional Public Health Service and the team at the hospital would have tried to contact the woman, she said. The hospital had her details from when she was triaged.
She was found some time last night with, Apa understands, the help of some of her family.
By about 7pm or 8pm the hospital made contact with her and were making arrangements for her to isolate herself.
Another 30 ED patients have been forced to isolate at home or in hospital.
Seven police officers who interacted with the woman over the past few days have been stood down from duty as a safety precaution.
Apa said she backs her staff.
"They do the right thing with the information that's in front of them."
The woman went through a green screen and
She said the DHB are looking whether there are other things that can be done at the front door before people get to a ward.
Staff from other parts of the hospital, like the Manukau Super Clinic have been moved to the hospital to help out.
Director General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield says he's confident the woman was truthful during their her initial Covid-19 screening at the hospital, completed prior to taking a test.