MEDIA STATEMENT
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Wednesday 1 July 2026, 10:00AM
2 minutes to Read
Te Tiratū Iwi Māori Partnership Board representing over 121,000 Māori in Tainui waka rohe extends its deepest condolences to the whānau who have lost a loved one who died after reportedly waiting nine hours in the Emergency Department at Waikato Hospital.
No family should experience the trauma of losing a loved one while waiting for emergency care, and every person who enters a hospital deserves timely, safe and dignified treatment.
IMPB Co-chair and Chair of Hauraki PHO Glen Tupuhi said the focus must be on understanding why the system failed and ensuring it does not happen again especially when Crown oversight body, Health Quality & Safety Commission Te Tāhū Hauora has already identified Māori adverse-event harm as a system issue.[1]
“Our first thoughts are with the whānau who have suffered an unimaginable loss.”
“We respect their privacy at what will be an incredibly difficult time. Health New Zealand has advised us that a clinical review has commenced. We are deeply concerned about media reporting witnesses saying some “were waiting up to 13 hours” which is over double the performance target,” he said.
“This must be about more than one tragic event. We know many of our rurally based whānau across the region have the added stress of travel to Kirikiriroa and wait times.”
“Our community deserves confidence that emergency departments are safe, adequately resourced and able to provide timely care when people need it most.”
The Iwi Māori Partnership Board anticipates that the review will look at wider system issues such as delayed admissions from the Emergency Department also known as “access block”.
“It is the measure most strongly associated with patient harm, Te Tiratū expects these to be addressed transparently and with urgency.”
The key national benchmark for ED performance is that 95% of patients are admitted, discharged or transferred from an emergency department within six hours. Te Whatu Ora public data on overall Waikato shorter-stays-in-ED is 66.4% which is materially below the target.[2]
Te Tiratū welcomes a thorough and transparent review to establish the facts and identify any lessons that will strengthen patient safety immediately, so it never happens again.
“As the statutory Iwi Māori Partnership Board responsible for monitoring health system performance across our rohe under the Pae Ora (Healthy Futures) Act 2022, we will continue to proactively engage constructively with Health New Zealand as more information becomes available.”
While it is too early to comment on the specific circumstances of this case, this tragic event highlights the importance of ensuring the emergency department at Waikato Hospital is safe, appropriately resourced, and able to meet the needs of all whānau.
Factors Te Tiratū anticipates will be assessed include ED triage and assessment, waiting room monitoring, escalation processes when waits become unsafe, staffing rosters versus actual, inpatient bed occupancy, ‘access block’ delaying admission, ambulance offload delays, weekend or evening acute flow, specialist team response times, discharge delays and internal hospital flow.
Looking at the publicly available Health NZ Health Targets data, Waikato’s Shorter Stays in Emergency Department performance is 66%, compared with the national result of 74.2% (approximately 74.4% in the latest quarter). This remains well below the Government’s target that 95% of patients spend less than six hours in ED,” he said.[3]
The Iwi Māori Partnership Board for Tainui waka rohe know Māori experience poor outcomes in the health system across Aotearoa. More whānau experience in-hospital adverse events than any other cohort.
Te Tiratū remains committed to working alongside Te Whatu Ora Health New Zealand to improve health outcomes for whānau and strengthen public confidence in the health system.
A 2020 Health and Disability Commissioner decision involving the Waikato DHB found systemic issues contributed to a long delay in ED that put patients at risk.[4]
The Commissioner at the time was concerned the system allowed patients to fall well outside medical review times when registrar workload was overwhelmed.
[1] https://www.hqsc.govt.nz/resources/resource-library/adverse-events-exception-reporting-202021-thematic-analysis-involving-maori-and-pacific-peoples/
[2] Health NZ health target performance resources 2025/26 https://www.healthnz.govt.nz/publications/health-targets-performance-resources-2025-26 and Health NZ Q2 2025/26 Waikato factsheet, October to December 2025 https://www.healthnz.govt.nz/publications/health-targets-performance-resources-2025-26
[3] 23 June 2026 Te Whatu Ora Media Release: https://www.healthnz.govt.nz/news-and-updates/access-to-care-continuing-to-improve-across-a-range-of-health-indicators
[4] Case 18HDC0156 https://www.hdc.org.nz/media/i13ljoyl/18hdc01563.pdf