Waikato IT services restored after clinical system outage

Health NZ’s IT services across the Waikato District have been restored following an earlier outage impacting some clinical and operational systems on Wednesday.

Waikato group director of operations Stephanie Doe said her team was continuing to monitor the situation closely – with the outage having started at 10.44am on Wednesday, when staff were informed and advised of the continuity plans in place for each service area. 

“We continued to deliver safe patient care throughout the outage and emergency departments remained open,” Ms Doe said.

“Any impact to clinical systems is treated with the greatest urgency. We reverted to manual processes for a number of areas such as patient information tracking and results reporting. Urgent care, including our Emergency Department, was prioritised with additional resources in place.  

“Unfortunately, the outage meant some planned appointments needed to be deferred and affected patients will be contacted directly. We will reschedule appointments as soon as possible. 

“We are continuing to work closely with our network provider partners to monitor the situation.”

OUTAGE “DAMNING”

New Zealand’s Public Service Association (PSA) said the latest IT outage at hospitals across the Waikato District was ”yet more damning evidence that the Government’s reckless cuts to the Health NZ IT workforce have consequences for patient care.”

PSA national secretary Fleur Fitzsimons noted the outage had impacted Waikato Hospital and other hospitals at Thames, Te Kūiti, Tokoroa and Taumarunui.

“Patients deserve better than a pen and paper public health system. Clinicians need to rely on modern, 24/7 IT systems to do their job – this is 2026 not 1966,” Ms Fitzsimons said.

“We have warned all along that when you cut more than 1000 jobs in IT, there will be consequences and patient care will suffer. Make no mistake, without adequate funding, these outages will keep happening, impacting the ability of clinicians to provide the timely care patients need.”

The PSA is the union representing Health NZ’s Digital Services workforce.

Ms Fitzsimons said the latest incident was “just more chickens coming home to roost,” noting “Health NZ today again said the problems are a result of years of underfunding and a hot potch of legacy IT systems that need fixing and integrating into national systems.”

Health NZ has been approached for a response to the PSA’s comments.