Most non-urgent operations in the Wellington region have been cancelled this week due to high numbers of hospital staff falling sick with Covid-19 or being forced to isolate.
Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
Capital and Coast District Health Board said only very urgent surgery - mainly cancer, cardiac and neurology - will go ahead for the next week.
Orthopaedic surgeon Peter Devane, who works in both the public and private sector, said Covid-related staff shortages had been wreaking havoc with surgical lists across the entire region.
"For the last two weeks, it's required a day-to-day assessment of what we'd be able to do."
Private hospitals, which do 35 to 40 percent of elective operations, were "in the same boat", he said.
"Patients have all been warned that this is likely to happen. They know their dates haven't been set in stone with the Covid numbers as they sit at the moment.
"And we're expecting the next four to five weeks will be like that."
The Omicron wave - and hospitalisations - had yet to peak in Wellington, he said.
"That may be still a week to ten days away, the modelling can't be 100 percent accurate... Christchurch is probably tracking about the same."