\u201cbed block\u201d<\/a> \u2013 where hospital wards were full and patients languished in an ED cubicle waiting to be admitted.<\/p>\n\u201cAccess block [bed block] puts enormous pressure on EDs and is a serious health risk to the public.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said that when patients were effectively \u201cboarding\u201d at the ED, it increased pressure on the system and was \u201ctaxing\u201d for staff.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor the most part, there\u2019s just increasing strain on the workforce at large.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lowry said more than 230 fulltime equivalent staff had been recruited nationwide by HNZ to help hospitals as part of winter planning, with another 74 positions to be \u201ccovered internally\u201d. <\/p>\n
\u201cAs recruitment for the remaining FTE continues, Health NZ is collaborating with healthcare partners including general practices, pharmacies, and primary providers to support the plan\u2019s delivery,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Lowry emphasised the \u201ccritical\u201d importance of vaccinations to prevent serious illness and hospitalisation.<\/p>\n
Do EDs have enough staff?<\/p>\n
![\"Official]()
Official information obtained exclusively by the Herald shows variations in the number of staff at different EDs around NZ. Jason Dorday<\/p>\n
Figures obtained by the Herald under the Official Information Act (OIA) show that from September 2024 to December 2025, the total number of ED staff across all 20 health districts nationally increased by 294, from a total of 5527 to 5821.<\/p>\n
The figure includes both corporate and frontline ED staff, including nurses, care and support workers, diagnostic staff, junior doctors and senior medical officers.<\/p>\n
Health Minister Simeon Brown told the Herald the figures showed progress.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are more frontline staff and more nurses working in our emergency departments than ever before, and patients are being seen and treated faster as a result,\u201d he told the Herald.<\/p>\n
However, Chisholm didn\u2019t believe that was a fair reflection of the situation \u2013 especially for those EDs that had not seen a boost in staff numbers.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a broad sweeping statement which hides reality in many, many hospitals around the country,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
![\"Tracy]()
Tracy Chisholm says Waikato Hospital has received more staff but that isn’t the case for all EDs. Photo \/ Mike Scott <\/p>\n
While the national total of all ED staff across the country is edging upwards, some districts have seen reductions in frontline workers, especially nurses, according to the Herald\u2019s OIA.<\/p>\n
The OIA \u2013 the latest available data from HNZ \u2013 tracks fulltime equivalent staff numbers across 20 health districts.<\/p>\n
The Waikato district showed a drop in total ED nursing staff over the 15 months \u2013 which would consider all EDs in the region, including Thames, Te K\u016biti, Tokoroa, Taumarunui and Waikato Hospital EDs.<\/p>\n
Chisholm says Waikato Hospital\u2019s ED had seen an increase in nursing and healthcare assistant staff in the past year and a half, but other EDs had not.<\/p>\n
She had particular concerns about ED workforce numbers in Rotorua, Christchurch and Whang\u0101rei. <\/p>\n
Canterbury, Lakes, Nelson Marlborough, Hutt Valley, Auckland, Waitemata, Counties Manukau and Wairarapa districts saw a modest decline in nursing staff, according to HNZ\u2019s data.<\/p>\n
On the flipside, Bay of Plenty saw an increase in both nursing and senior medical officers and so did Hawke\u2019s Bay.<\/p>\n
![\"Health]()
Health Minister Simeon Brown. Photo \/ Anna Heath<\/p>\n
A spokeswoman for Brown\u2019s office suggested the Herald was \u201ccherry picking\u201d data by looking at specific districts, and the most reliable comparison was the national totals which showed continuous increases in ED staff numbers over consecutive years.<\/p>\n
Brown said the Government was doing much better than the previous Labour government and provided the Herald with a graphic charting the increase in total ED staff, and total nursing staff, each December between 2022 and 2025.<\/p>\n
![\"]()
A graph provided by Health Minister Simeon Brown’s office charting the total number of ED staff across the country every December from 2022 to 2025.<\/p>\n
Connelly said the reality on the frontline was that \u201cstress and burnout is weighing heavily\u201d on emergency staff, which had prompted some to leave for Australia or slash their hours.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re seeing people that might be leaving the emergency departments or the front line to go into different parts of the health sector, they might be going overseas, or they might be going part-time,\u201d he told the Herald.<\/p>\n
He said \u201cpersistent\u201d staff shortages and \u201cmaldistribution\u201d of staff in different parts of the country mean many EDs are currently operating at or above capacity.<\/p>\n
Michael Morrah<\/a> is a senior investigative reporter\/team leader at the Herald. He won News Journalist of the Year at the 2025 Voyager Media Awards and has twice been named reporter of the year at the NZ Television Awards. He has been a broadcast journalist for 20 years and joined the Herald\u2019s video team in July 2024.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At its busiest, she said 48 patients were in the waiting room, with some remaining there longer than…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":499930,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[249868,6127,806,2046,1887,5972,18936,13973,15974,2842,134,20557,2241,111,139,11515,69,128763,115099,1597,3240,21532,2687,1516,1515,159410,1524,23644,102,8598],"class_list":["post-499929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-18year","tag-already","tag-as","tag-career","tag-countrys","tag-day","tag-departments","tag-ed","tag-emergency","tag-experienced","tag-health","tag-hitting","tag-hospital","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nurse","tag-nz","tag-overload","tag-overwhelms","tag-patient","tag-recently","tag-rush","tag-saying","tag-staff","tag-surge","tag-swamped","tag-waikato","tag-winter","tag-with","tag-worst"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499929","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=499929"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499929\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/499930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=499929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=499929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=499929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}