Auckland prisoner granted release days before death, but was too sick to go home

A woman who died in prison on Monday had been granted compassionate release just a week prior, but had been too sick to return home.

Fung Chu Sze, 58, was found unresponsive in her cell at Auckland Region Women's Corrections Facility about 4.30am, and could not be revived.

She had been suffering from stage 4 lung cancer which had only been diagnosed in February, after months of complaining of pain.

When her two children, Benji and Stephanie, received news of their mother’s terminal diagnosis, they immediately applied for her to be released and sent home to Hong Kong to be with them in her final days.

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Sze was granted a compassionate release by the parole board on March 1.

But a Corrections spokeswoman said the planned overseas release “presented a number of challenges due to [Sze’s] condition and Covid-19 border restrictions”.

Sze, who had served six years for importing drugs, instead died in her cell.

She had been for her second chemotherapy appointment only the day before.

Benji Sze said he found the application process “frustrating”, and blamed the delays in diagnosis and the slow processing of the application for him not being able to see his mum one last time.

She had first been seen by health workers at the prison in September 2020, but was not diagnosed until February, five months later.

In the week before his mother’s death, he got so desperate he messaged Prime Minister Jacinda Adern’s official Facebook page to highlight his mother’s plight, but there was no response.

That same week, he and his sister also had their own visa applications to enter New Zealand knocked back.

Corrections’ health deputy chief executive Juanita Ryan was making contact with the family to invite them to meet with her to discuss Sze’s care, a spokeswoman said.

“When a person is facing a terminal illness, our staff do their utmost to ensure their welfare and dignity is maintained,” the spokeswoman said.

Sze was originally in a double-bunked cell, but had requested a move to the self-care unit or a single cell after she received her diagnosis.

The move to the self-care unit was approved, but after “a period in hospital off-site”, she was put in a single cell in the prison's separation unit, the spokeswoman said.

That was because the prison’s Covid-19 alert level 3 protocols “required people to be managed separately for 14 days after spending time offsite to prevent any potential for Covid-19 transmission into a prison”.

“She was in this accommodation when she passed away.”