{"id":608015,"date":"2026-09-06T21:24:16","date_gmt":"2026-09-06T21:24:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/608015\/"},"modified":"2026-09-06T21:24:16","modified_gmt":"2026-09-06T21:24:16","slug":"elective-surgeries-postponed-as-winter-illnesses-surge-in-hospitals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/608015\/","title":{"rendered":"Elective surgeries postponed as winter illnesses surge in hospitals"},"content":{"rendered":"

Elective surgeries are being postponed as the health system responds to the highest levels of demand<\/a> seen in recent years.<\/p>\n

Health New Zealand says acute care has to be prioritised.<\/p>\n

Its national chief medical officer Dame Helen Stokes-Lampard said patient numbers are above historic winter levels.<\/p>\n

She said the pressure is expected to continue for at least another three to four weeks – but numbers have reduced from the “exceptionally high levels” seen in August.<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, the government put an extra $25 million towards extra beds<\/a> and staff recruitment to prepare for winter.<\/p>\n

Health NZ said at Middlemore Hospital in Auckland<\/a>, they’re redeploying staff and offering overtime shifts to address the high number of patients at its emergency department.<\/p>\n

Where procedures are deferred, Stokes-Lampard said patients can be assured it will only happen when safe to do so.<\/p>\n

“The decision to defer care is not taken lightly and all decisions are made on a case-by-case basis by clinical teams with patient safety and wellbeing as the highest priority.<\/p>\n

“Surgeries are always rescheduled for the next available opportunity, and we consider the acuity of a patient’s condition to ensure those with the highest need are treated first.”<\/p>\n

Speaking to Morning Report, Association of Salaried Medical Specialists executive director Sarah Dalton said members were “really feeling” the pressure.<\/p>\n

About 200 members attended a conference last week and Dalton said nobody in the room worked in a service not under pressure – with a lot of them saying they’d never known it to be this bad.<\/p>\n

“The idea that you can pump a few million bucks and a handful of workers into our hospitals a few weeks before winter and that will help is just magical thinking.”<\/p>\n

Dalton acknowledged the medical professionals working hard in hospitals across the country to try keep people safe in conditions that aren’t “particularly safe”.<\/p>\n

She also said she was “very aware” of how delays to elective care can cause real trauma and difficulty to patients and their families.<\/p>\n

Dalton said some were having to stop eating before surgeries only for the procedures to be cancelled at the last minute.<\/p>\n

Others had to organise leave and childcare while planning to be away from home.<\/p>\n

The unpredictability can cause anxiety, cost and disruption – which is “really regrettable”, she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Elective surgeries are being postponed as the health system responds to the highest levels of demand seen in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":608016,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[163,521,85,46],"class_list":["post-608015","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-health","tag-healthcare","tag-il","tag-israel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608015","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=608015"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608015\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/608016"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=608015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=608015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=608015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}