Connectivity failure behind Waikato Hospital IT outage
Waikato Hospital and several regional facilities in New Zealand experienced a significant IT outage caused by a network connectivity failure. Staff were forced to revert to manual paper-based systems, leading to some surgical delays and emergency department wait times before services were restored.
Why it matters
This incident highlights the vulnerability of modern healthcare systems to critical IT infrastructure failures and the necessity of robust contingency planning.
A connectivity failure at Waikato Hospital meant staff had to revert to pen and paper after a widespread IT outage .
Health NZ said late on Wednesday evening that the problem - which began at 10.44am - had been fixed, but it was continuing to monitor the situation.
Te Whatu Ora/Health NZ chief information technology officer Darren Douglas said there had been an issue with its main data centre which meant users weren't able to connect.
Thames, Te Kūiti, Tokoroa and Taumarunui hospitals were also affected, which resulted in longer wait times in the emergency department, some delayed surgeries, and forced staff to revert to paper systems.
Douglas told Morning Report the outage was down to a network connectivity issue.
Get smarter about the news
Sign up free for a feed built around what you actually care about, Dive Deeper research on any story, and the full text of every article.
Create free accountAlready have an account? Sign in