- Time for Govt to admit fault and properly fund the upgrade of old IT systems
Clinicians across hospitals in Auckland and Northland were forced to use paper-based systems and whiteboards overnight after another major IT outage in yet another warning sign for the Government with potentially deadly consequences for patients.
The IT outage lasted more than 12 hours from late yesterday taking down all ED, laboratory and inpatient systems. This forced nurses and doctors to resort to manual backups, nurses to take on admin tasks, creating chaos in EDs and other departments.
The outage prevented clinicians accessing key patient information and communicating internally and across the region, slowing down decision-making on patient care.
This follows outages at South Island hospitals earlier this month and the recent failure of the patient portal at Wellington Hospital.
"The Government has to take the blame for this - these failures are a direct result of its short-sighted decision to underfund and cut roles at Health NZ's digital services team," said Fleur Fitzsimons, National Secretary for the Public Service Association Te Pūkenga Here Tikanga Mahi.
"The Government oversaw the loss of the very experts who maintain and upgrade these critical systems, and now we're seeing the predictable consequences - hospitals forced onto whiteboards and paper forms while trying to deliver modern healthcare."
Patient Elinor Kennedy was at Auckland Hospital ED last night when the systems crashed forcing her and others to wait hours to be triaged.
"It was way more chaotic than even an ED should be. One triage nurse was having to transcribe all notes by hand. The ED was filling up around her, well past the point of overflowing. Lab results couldn't be emailed to ED, so communication with labs was entirely reliant on phone communication.
"There were not enough administration staff onsite, which meant nurses had to fill in to support with administration tasks instead of their clinical duties. The nursing and administration staff showed amazing resilience under enormous pressure but were clearly frustrated at the gaps being laid bare in the system."
The PSA is calling on the Government to:
- Immediately review funding for health digital services and IT infrastructure
- Admit its mistakes in cutting digital services expertise
- Commit to properly resourcing IT system upgrades and maintenance
"We also call on the Privacy Commissioner to widen his investigation into the ManageMyHealth cyber attack to include a comprehensive review of the vulnerability of public health IT systems which hold sensitive patient information.
"When clinical systems fail, patient safety is at risk. Doctors and nurses are doing their best with manual systems, but this is 2026 - our health system should not be grinding to a halt because of preventable IT failures.
"Patients deserve the very best care, and clinicians can't do that when hamstrung by dated systems that are now regularly falling over. It's high time Health Minister Simeon Brown stopped making excuses and started properly funding the digital infrastructure our hospitals desperately need," said Fitzsimons.
