File photoA massive IT outage at hospitals in Auckland and Northland is being blamed on cuts to Health NZ's digital team, by a union representing public service workers. "This is entirely predictable, given the government forced cuts on Health New Zealand's data and digital experts," Fitzsimons said. In a statement, Health NZ's executive director for the northern region Andrew Brant confirmed the outage had affected several hospitals. "The outage lasted around 12 hours with services restored to all impacted hospitals in the early hours of this morning." Fitzsimons called for the government to immediately review funding for digital health services and "admit its mistakes in cutting digital services expertise."

Source: Otago Daily Times January 29, 2026 01:13 UTC