Rotorua and Taupo hospitals are coping well midway through strike action by junior doctors - with "significantly lower" numbers of people turning up at the emergency department.
Lakes District Health Board chief operating officer Nick Saville-Wood said significant planning had paid off with robust plans and process in place to make sure patients who needed emergency care received it.
He said the lower number of people turning up to the emergency department in the first 24 hours of the strike indicated people were generally adhering to the hospital's request to keep the emergency department for emergencies only.
"However we are still seeing some lower acuity patients that could otherwise have been managed in primary care.
"We had 63 emergency department presentations on Tuesday, compared with a daily average of approximately 93 presentations per day last year."