Waikato IT outage leaves hospital staff using pen and paper for more than 11 hours

NEWS  - eHealthNews editor Rebecca McBeth

A network connectivity failure at Waikato Hospital on 22 July meant staff were unable to access clinical systems for more than 11 hours after both the primary and failover systems failed simultaneously, forcing health workers across the Waikato district to use pen and paper.

The outage began at 10:44am and affected not only Waikato Hospital but facilities across the former district health board network, including hospitals in Thames, Te Kūiti, Tokoroa and Taumarunui

Health NZ chief information technology officer Darren Douglass told RNZ on Morning Report that the failure was the result of a loss of connectivity between the user network and the organisation's main data centre. 

"The connectivity between our network that our users used to access systems in our main data centre failed," Douglass said. 

"So effectively the systems in that data centre, although they were running okay, none of the users could access them."

The backup system designed to prevent this kind of disruption also did not activate. Douglass said that both the primary equipment and its secondary failover counterpart were non-operational and Health NZ worked with technology partners to manually restore service.

Emergency departments and urgent care services remained open throughout the outage, with staff redirected to support critical and urgent cases. Non-urgent appointments were deferred as hospital teams implemented manual continuity plans.

He said the cause of the dual failure is still under investigation. 

"Our priority today (July 23) is now working through with our technology partners, looking at why that failure occurred in the first place, understanding that and what we need to do to mitigate it to make sure it does not happen again," Douglass said.

Public Service Association national secretary Fleur Fitzsimon says 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.

"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." 

Douglass told RNZ there was no evidence to say that IT job cuts had contributed to the outage and that operational support for critical systems was explicitly prioritised during the organisation's restructure.

"We are dealing with a complex environment that has been underinvested for decades," he said. 
The new 10-year Health Digital Investment Plan aims to address ageing technology and inconsistencies across districts.

Image: Photo by Josh Tere on Unsplash

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