A pair of Aucklanders are furious with the Government after health officials sent them the COVID-19 test results of four complete strangers.
Newshub has seen texts sent to two Auckland citizens - one a 16-year-old girl who hadn't even taken a coronavirus test - featuring the details and test results of people they didn't know.
This includes the first name of the person, the date they got tested and an ID code that can be used to access more detailed information.
When asked about the error at Monday's COVID-19 press conference, both Health Minister Chris Hipkins and Acting Director-General of Health Robyn Shearer denied knowing anything about it.
John McCarthy says his teen daughter, who hadn't tested for COVID-19, received texts with the test results of two total strangers on Saturday night.
"This is unbelievable how they've f**ked up yet again," he told Newshub.
"Saturday night it came through… I said, 'What have you been receiving this for?' She said 'I don't know'.
"We just laughed about it and thought nothing of it. But then I woke up in the morning and thought, 'Hang on a minute, this is a monumental cock-up'."
McCarthy said his daughter became distressed considering the two people who were still waiting on their test results to come back.
"I'm furious, I'm really pissed off," he said.
A second Auckland man got the test results of two people he didn't know on Monday morning, alongside negative results for him and his partner.
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The man, who wishes to remain anonymous, reported the wrong information to health officials but was left unsettled by the "appalling" cracks in the system.
"This should not happen," he told Newshub.
"First of all, the issue is that if I hadn't called back that 0800 number, those people might never have got their results. Secondly, why am I getting two random people's results?
"When these things happen, it doesn't instil a lot of confidence in people who've lined up for a test."
Another thing that doesn't instil confidence is the content of the texts themselves, which encourage people to ring an 0800 number if they've received the wrong person's test result.
This 0800 number connects those who've received negative test results to the Auckland Regional Public Health Service (ARPHS). Callers can then speak to an operator if they've been sent the wrong information.
ACT Party leader David Seymour says the fact ARPHS has such messaging is "alarming", and shows the Ministry of Health knows a problem exists.
"It's alarming that the Government would send your test results to the wrong person; worse still, they do it so often they have a system for reporting on that," he said.
"There's been a lot of people waiting for a long time for their results, and you have to wonder if that's because they were sent to the wrong people.
"We know the Ministry of Health knew about this problem because they had a system to report on their own screw-ups - that's how bad it was."
A spokesperson for Northern Region DHBs told Newshub it was aware of the case of McCarthy's daughter, and has now re-sent test results to the contact numbers on record for the intended recipients.
They said a process has been set up to protect patient information and privacy, which is why the texts contain only limited personal information and a number to call if texts are sent to the wrong person.
"The Northern Region has processed hundreds of thousands of COVID-19 test results and, occasionally, people getting a COVID-19 test have given us the wrong number by accident or it has been recorded incorrectly," the spokesperson explained.
When an error is reported to the phone number provided in the text message, they said the team works quickly to:
- Log that an incorrect number has been recorded.
- Send an alert to the referring GP and/or community testing centre where the test was taken.
- Contact the person who had the test taken to inform them of their negative test result.
But the Aucklanders who received texts meant for others say the botch-up points to Hipkins - who handles both the Education and Health portfolios - having too much on his plate.
"I mean, hello? Isn't there someone else in the Labour Party that can stand up for one of those portfolios?" one anonymous text recipient said.
McCarthy said Hipkins appears "overrun and overworked", and believes Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern's decision to load him up with such massive portfolios shows her "incompetence".