This grubby tactic is a desperate attempt to prop up the coalition’s pre-election promise of slashing hospital wait times, a pledge now crumbling under the weight of their own incompetence, uncovered manipulations and chronic under-funding.
Yesterday, 1 News reported:
Documents released to 1News by the senior doctors union and Nurses Union show an email exchange between a clinician at Nelson Hospital and a manager.
In late June the clinician wrote that they had noticed some "unusual activity" with patient bookings. "It looks like there are 23 long wait patients listed as booked for a clinic scheduled for tomorrow under (redacted). However, the clinic doesn't exist as she is on leave."
A copy of the booking system for June 24, with the patient's details redacted, shows the patients were booked in for five minute slots with the note "DO NOT CONTACT PATIENT".
After the clinician again raised concerns, the manager emailed back: "We have received clear messaging from the commissioner that no patients are to be waiting longer than two years for an FSA by [June 30] and need to have a plan to be seen".
"So by creating the virtual clinic I was able to create a space for those patients to be held until booked." The email ends with: "please be assured as clumsy as this may seem, I am trying to do the right thing by everyone".
The public deserves better than such patronising deceit. The allegations are as insidious as they are unsurprising. Senior doctors and the Nurses Union have sounded the alarm, reporting “unusual activity” in Nelson Hospital’s booking system, where patients were “parked” in fictitious clinics only to be shuffled to real appointments later.
Health NZ’s Dr Derek Sherwood had the gall to call this a mere “administrative workaround,” as if fudging data to make wait times appear shorter is just another day at the office. Unfortunately for him, this is clearly a manipulation and cynical ploy to mask the coalition’s failure to deliver on their grandiose health promises. The Health and Disability Commissioner is now watching, but one wonders if Simeon Brown and his cronies will wriggle free with their usual bluster, particularly as there's very little mainstream media attention being given to this issue.
However, it's not hard to see the government’s fingerprints all over this scandal. While overseeing a health system in crisis, their obsession with optics over outcomes is painfully clear. The coalition’s outsourcing of 10,579 elective procedures to private hospitals by June 2025, at a cost of $50 million, is another sleight of hand. As RNZ reported, senior doctors slammed this move for creating a “false impression” of reduced wait times. Private providers cherry-pick straightforward cases, leaving complex patients languishing in under-resourced public hospitals.
On March 25, RNZ reported:
According to Health NZ Te Whatu Ora, there were 222 patients waiting for gynaecology surgery in Northland, of whom nearly half (101) had waited longer than the target of 120 days, 64 more than six months and eight more than a year.
Bailey said the backlog had been building for several years, partly driven by population increases - Northland is one of the fastest growing regions in the country - workforce shortages, industrial action by nurses, junior doctors and anaesthetic technicians, and then finally the Covid-19 pandemic.
"We've never caught up since."
He and his team had offered to do extra surgery sessions to help clear the backlog - but Health NZ would not pay for it.
"We can't actually run weekend lists because they are nitpicking about pay for theatre nurses."
When surgery was outsourced, those most in need of treatment tended to miss out, he said.
The last time Northland referred patients to a private hospital in Auckland - about a year ago - many were declined because they were "too complex".
It’s a numbers game, not a solution, and it reeks of the same dishonesty as the “ghost appointments” fiasco. Meanwhile, over 74,000 patients wait beyond four months for specialist assessments, and 37,000 for treatment. These figures expose the coalition’s hollow rhetoric for what it is: a cruel mirage that is impacting New Zealanders lives.
The government's refusal to properly fund Health, while funnelling millions to private providers, ensures overall wait times will only worsen, no matter how many “ghost appointments” they conjure up.
At the heart of this mess is the coalition’s belief in austerity and deliberate underfunding of public health. Hospitals are stretched to breaking point, with staffing shortages so dire that nurses, driven by desperation, are once again striking. The Nurses Union has been unequivocal: underfunding has created unsafe working conditions, compromising patient care. But instead of addressing this crisis, Brown and Reti prattle on about “steady progress” and “health targets,” as if words alone can bandage a haemorrhaging system.
This isn’t the first time the National-led government has played fast and loose with the truth when it comes to wait times. Historical data, like the 2012 study on elective surgery booking systems, points to “gaming” practices under previous National governments, such as raising clinical thresholds to exclude eligible patients from wait lists. Sound familiar? The coalition’s current tactics are just a rehash of this playbook, dressed up in new jargon but no less dishonest.
Kiwis deserve a health system that prioritises patients, not political point-scoring. The coalition’s reliance on data manipulation and privatisation by stealth is an insult to every New Zealander waiting in pain. Minister Brown, it’s time to stop hiding behind “workarounds” and face the music: your underfunded, mismanaged health system is failing us yet again.
