Statement attributable to Dr Dale Bramley, Health New Zealand Chief Executive

Health New Zealand would like to acknowledge and thank all our hospital staff and contingency planning teams who worked in the lead-up to and during the just-completed nurses’ strike to support the continued delivery of care and treatment to our patients.

The impact of the strike varied by hospital, depending on acute care demand and the number of New Zealand Nurses Organisation (NZNO) members who made the decision to strike.

Despite heavy winter occupancy in some areas, our hospitals got through the strike without any serious incidents, which is a testament to all those staff and volunteers who provided support.

While the strike lasted 24 hours, an enormous amount of planning work went on beforehand and there is a lot more work to do now the strike has finished.

We estimate that about 4,300 planned procedures and specialist appointments had to be postponed as a result of the strike as we needed to focus on clinical care for acute and priority patients.

We remain very concerned about the significant number of patients who have had much-needed treatment deferred due to the strike. New appointments for those patients will be scheduled as soon as possible.

We are committed to settling the collective agreement with NZNO and we encourage the union to focus its efforts on bargaining so we can resolve the outstanding issues.

Health NZ is completely committed to patient and staff safety. We have more nurses working for Health NZ than ever before.

In the two years to March 2025, our nursing FTE increased by over 3,000, turnover has dropped from 13.3% to 8.2% and our vacancy rate is now at a six-year low of 3.6%. 

Again, a special thank you to those who worked during the strike to ensure patients were cared for and our hospitals could function – and to those helping to get things back to normal today.

ENDS

Note: For information on the role of a Health NZ nurse, and the salary and benefits visit Employment Agreement - Factsheet

Media contact: hnzmedia@health.govt.nz