As a head and neck cancer patient you have a number of support resources available to help you.
You will need to be a New Zealand citizen or a permanent resident to access this support.
"Serious Adverse Events" in n Australia, 'Adverse Event' refers generically to medical errors of all kinds, surgical, medical or nursing related. An “adverse event “(AE) is any untoward medical occurrence in a patient or clinical investigation subject administered a pharmaceutical product and which does not necessarily have a causal relationship with this treatment. An adverse event (AE) can therefore be any unfavourable and unintended sign (including an abnormal laboratory finding), symptom, or disease temporally associated with the use of a medicinal (investigational) product, whether or not related to the medicinal (investigational) product.
Adverse events categorized as "serious" (resulting in death, illness requiring hospitalization, events deemed life-threatening, results in persistent or significant disability/incapacity or medically important condition) must be reported to the regulatory authorities immediately, whereas non-serious adverse events are merely documented in the annual summary sent to the regulatory authority.
Did you know that you can make a report yourself, as a patient, family member or carer, directly to the Health Quality and Safety Commission (HQSC) if you think that your case should be reported as "Serious Adverse Event" ?
The Health Quality & Safety Commission may have a common law duty to refer adverse events to other agencies in situations where it is necessary to protect and promote public health and safety. The Health Quality & Safety Commission will be transparent, open and inclusive with affected health and disability service providers when discharging this duty.
If things go badly and the medical professional has not complied with this policy then don't wait for somebody else to make the report, do it yourself. Read the following information for policy, making a report, etc:
https://www.hqsc.govt.nz/our-programmes/adverse-events/
http://www.medsafe.govt.nz/regulatory/DevicesNew/9AdverseEvent.asp
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