Hospitals across Auckland and Northland experienced a temporary IT outage on Thursday afternoon that disrupted the transfer of radiology images, including X-rays, CT scans and MRIs, for about two hours.
Health New Zealand told state media backup procedures were implemented while the issue was resolved and maintained that patient care was not affected. However, the Public Service Association described the incident as a significant system failure, warning clinicians were forced to rely on manual communication methods to share critical scan information, potentially slowing treatment.
The union noted the disruption follows another recent outage and renewed calls for a review of funding and investment in hospital digital infrastructure.
Three probabilities here. 1) They don’t have the right equipment for the job. 2) They don’t have the right people to do the job. 3) 1 and 2 combined.