Union links IT outages to digital cuts

NEWS - eHealthNews.nz editor Rebecca McBeth

Health New Zealand has rejected claims by the Public Service Association that recent IT outages across the country are linked to cuts to its Digital Services Team.

Hospitals across the Northern region were impacted by a 12-hour outage overnight on January 28 affecting clinical and operational systems.

Staff at Te Tai Tokerau, Waitematā, Auckland and Counties Manukau had to resort to paper-based workarounds and manual systems until the services were restored in the early hours of the following morning.

The Public Service Association Te Pūkenga Here Tikanga Mahi says the outage took down ED, laboratory and inpatient systems, preventing clinicians from accessing key patient information and communicating internally and across the region, slowing down patient care.

National secretary Fleur Fitzsimons says this latest incident follows outages at Southern Hospitals earlier this month and that “these failures are a direct result of (the government’s) short-sighted decision to underfund and cut roles at Health NZ's digital services team”.

Southern hospitals were impacted by an outage on 22 January 2026 which meant staff could not access the hospital administration system, SI PICS, or clinical portal Health Connect South, among other systems.

Another outage on 13 January 2026 lasted most of the day and forced Southern clinicians to again resort to paper-based workarounds.

Fitzsimons says, "the Government oversaw the loss of the very experts who maintain and upgrade these critical systems, and now we are seeing the predictable consequences - hospitals forced onto whiteboards and paper forms while trying to deliver modern healthcare."

Acting chief information technology officer Darren Douglass says there is no link between IT outages in recent weeks and staffing numbers in the Digital Services team as it was a technology failure in all recent outages.

"We have a complex environment, many of our technology components, systems or infrastructure, are old, and on occasion, they fail," he said.

In the Auckland case the failure was in part of the network infrastructure in a data centre that hosts a number of Health NZ systems. Local and national teams and global vendors all responded and he is confident the service the failure will not reoccur.

While the level of system availability has remained stable over the past 12 months, Douglass acknowledged it needs to be better.

"Our clinical staff and frontline staff should expect better than they are getting, and we are working really hard to make sure that we do that and we deliver those improvements," he said.

The restructure of Health NZ’s data and digital directorate last year saw the disestablishment of 1815 roles, including more than 750 vacancies. Staff were given the opportunity to apply for 651 newly established roles.

The PSA called on the government to immediately review funding for health digital services and IT infrastructure. 

"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," Fitzsimons said.

Andrew Brant, executive director Northern Region Health New Zealand, says emergency departments (EDs) remained open throughout the Auckland incident, with patient care continuing safely during the disruption.

Brant says Health New Zealand is completing an incident debrief to identify potential opportunities to improve the organisation’s systems.

“We appreciate the professionalism and adaptability of our staff across the region in managing the disruption,” he says.

Image: Public Service Association national secretary Fleur Fitzsimons

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