Photo: RNZ / DOM THOMAS
Appointments and procedures have been delayed or cancelled at Wellington region and Wairarapa hospitals because of a major technical outage.
The IT outage affected Te Whatu Ora Capital, Coast and Hutt Valley and Wairarapa on Thursday morning.
Te Whatu Ora said the outage was caused by an internal cooling infrastructure failure that caused a number of servers to overheat and shut down.
Applications automatically switched to the servers still operating, but the increased load caused disruption and delays to clinical and support systems.
It said the fault was identified about 4am.
The cooling issue had been resolved and services were being restored, but systems were running more slowly than usual and there might still be delays for patients, it said.
"There has been no external cause or influence contributing to this outage.
"Should a patient need to be deferred, they will be rescheduled at the next available opportunity. All decisions about deferrals are made on a case-by-case basis by clinical teams, however teams are working hard to try to ensure that deferrals are kept to a minuimum."
Disruption for cancer patients
Some cancer patients and other medical outpatients at Wellington Hospital had their treatment cancelled today due to the major IT meltdown.
A spokesperson said about 80 Wellington patients in cancer and outpatients had to be rescheduled.
The hospital will run extra evening and weekend sessions to catch up for these cancer patients.
The fault affected patient records, clinical notes, laboratory results, payroll, some swipe access cards, and the application that enables staff to work remotely.