Hospital rosters will be on public holiday staffing on 26 September, the one-off holiday to mark the Queen's death. Photo: 123rf/ Georgiy Datsenko
Hospitals are racing to cancel more operations because of the snap public holiday marking the Queen's death.
Bosses were having to reorganise theatre schedules and contact patients, many of whom had been waiting a long time.
Te Whatu Ora said hospital rosters on 26 September would be public holiday staffing.
However, until Monday, they had been expecting the date to be a normal weekday so had scheduled appointments and operations.
Association of General Surgeons president Rowan French said there was chaos as surgical bosses tried to rearrange plans.
"We normally plan about two months ahead, so two weeks is a very short time to make any changes," he said.
It was possible some cancer surgeries would have to be called off, but he hoped it would not come to that.
It was likely all acute work - like time-critical cancer, heart, and trauma surgery - would still go ahead.
But most so-called non-urgent surgery would likely not happen, such as for joint replacements, gallbladders, hernias, hysterectomies and ear, nose and throat.
"Everything we haven't been able to do for the last six months or so," he said.
The cancellations came on the back of several months where very few non-urgent surgeries had gone ahead in most major hospitals because they were full or short-staffed.
Though the holiday was good news for many people it did feel like "a small blow on top of everything else," French said.
Many of the patients would have already been waiting a long time and there would be flow on consequences.
"Because there's so little capacity, most spaces are filled. So, to rebook someone ... involves shuffling other patients further down the line," he said.
The country was already facing huge surgical backlogs before this year's two Covid-19 outbreaks.
A taskforce set up to tackle the problem was due to release its plan this month.