Some amputees are languishing in pain for weeks using ill-fitting or defective artificial limbs, and others are “giving up” on being able to walk again because they say they can’t get timely specialist appointments.
There are now calls for an overhaul of the Government’s system for supporting amputees.
The Herald has spoken to six amputees – from the Far North to Christchurch – all of whom want the ability to choose who provides their care and have that care funded.
At present, all amputees in the country are directed to Peke Waihanga or the New Zealand Artificial Limb Service (NZALS) – a government entity funded by the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC).
However, there’s concern that seeking funded help outside the national provider is met with pushback, delays or outright rejection by ACC.
NZALS said it has received formal complaints about its service, but patients were very satisfied overall, while ACC said some individuals requiring artificial limbs have complex and multifaceted needs.
Christchurch-based amputee Jacky Winterbourn said the status quo isn’t acceptable.
“There is no choice. You are locked into one provider,” she told the Herald.
Winterbourn had her left leg amputated below the knee after a forklift drove into her at Trade Depot’s Onehunga site in 2022.
The 71-year-old mother of three was determined to get on with life, but found the artificial limb provided by NZALS caused so much pain she had to stop using it.
“I was unable to walk. I had a limb that wasn’t fitting, and I had a limb that was causing skin breakdown,” she told the Herald.
“It also affected my mental health.”
Winterbourn felt staff at the NZALS were too busy to help and dismissive of ideas or suggestions, so she went overseas for advice.
“The foot that I’ve got on now is one that we investigated in Singapore. These options hadn’t been put to us in New Zealand,” she said.
She then met a prosthetist in Auckland who worked independently of the NZASL, which she said was “life-changing”.
However, it took months of haggling before ACC approved funding for those independent appointments.
“My main point is the fact that there isn’t a place where you can go for a second opinion. The care is not equitable,” she said.
Far North beekeeper Murray Moses is also struggling with a misaligned prosthesis.
When he spoke to the Herald from his home in Coopers Beach, he was sitting in his wheelchair – his problematic artificial leg was left, shunned, in the bedroom.
“The leg is in the room – I don’t even want to bloody look at it. The last thing I want to do is look at it.”
He said using the leg causes “excruciating pain”, and efforts to get issues resolved by travelling to Auckland for NZASL appointments failed to improve his plight.
“It’s killing me. Emotionally, they have been killing me. I feel like I have been committed to their processes [NZALS’ processes] and then their processes are not working for me.”
Like Winterbourn, he wants to see another expert, but said ACC is yet to say if it will fund those private appointments.
ACC’s head of service operations, Phil Riley, told the Herald “we are still considering” Moses’ request for funding to see a “non-contracted supplier”.
Given ongoing delays and pain from using his misaligned leg, Moses has reluctantly embraced his wheelchair.
“Do you know how hard it is to come to that realisation and to be driven to that point [of using a wheelchair rather than walking on his prosthesis]?”
He still hopes to walk again without pain and return to his passion of beekeeping but said “there are heaps” of amputees who had given up.
In Te Awamutu, mother of two and physiotherapist Naomi Carter is also locked in protracted negotiations with ACC to get funding to see an alternative provider.
She said it’s “near impossible” to get a timely appointment with the NZALS, and delays in getting issues fixed can take “months”.
“It’s been an absolute nightmare to be completely honest,” she said.
She said she’d left in tears “many times” after going to appointments at the Hamilton branch of NZALS.
“Tears not because you’re disappointed or you’re sad that you’re an amputee, tears of pure frustration for being there for the entire day and getting nowhere,” she said.
In some instances, Carter said, her emails or phone calls seeking appointments or updates would go unanswered.
“You have to battle, you have to argue, you have to fight,” she said.
NZALS chief executive Sean Gray told the Herald any concerns about its service delivery were taken “very seriously”.
He said NZALS was not short-staffed and the average wait time for patients across all regions is 6.2 days.
“If the appointment is urgent, in the vast majority of cases they will be seen within one working day,” he told the Herald.
Carter said that was not her experience, noting she recently sought an emergency appointment and was told she’d need to wait a week and a half before she’d be seen.
The mother of two preschoolers was now seeing a prosthetist at the limb service’s Tauranga branch who was “great”, but she said she’d never landed a booking within six days of a request.
“I have never had an appointment that fast. Even when my stump is ripped up and bleeding, I would not get in that fast,” she said.
Carter, whose socket doesn’t fit properly, dreams of being active with her children and not being in constant pain.
She also hopes to one day use her ACC-funded blade, which is “collecting dust” in her bedroom because the socket is “way too big”.
“It kind of breaks my heart. My 4-year-old knows when I’m too sore and I have to have my leg off, so she steps up and helps me out,” she said.
She’s been negotiating to try to see a specialist independent of the national provider, but her request has been rejected.
ACC’s Phil Riley told the Herald this was because Carter has an artificial leg under NZALS warranty.
“This means no alternative funding is provided,” he said.
Carter says patients should have the ability to choose who cares for them.
“I’m a physio and under an ACC injury, I can go and see any physio. However, you cannot do that with the limb service. You can’t choose who you want to see,” she told the Herald.
ACC’s acting deputy chief executive of sector commissioning and performance, Chris Ash, said amputees could choose a provider but they must follow certain rules.
“If a client chooses to request treatment from an alternative provider, they must get ACC’s approval before starting [appointments],” he said.
Double amputee Ian Winson, who works casually for the NZALS as a life coach, also has concerns about the lack of choice in service providers.
“We only have one place to go. For any amputee in New Zealand, there’s only one service available,” he said.
The civil engineer lost both his legs in a gas explosion while working for Watercare in Onehunga in 2011.
For years, he was resigned to getting around on what he calls his “stubbies” – short, unbendable legs that are 15cm tall with a plate on the base.
He’s grateful for the ACC funding he’s received to date, but became disillusioned when seeking “power knees” – robotic technology that he believed would be a game changer.
“I could see myself walking in the community again. I could see myself doing stuff I hadn’t done for a number of years,” he told the Herald.
But he said what followed was months of report writing and delays.
“It just took so long. There were months between something being approved and then something not being approved.”
During this process, Winson was asked to fit old equipment to the new ACC-funded power knees while he waited for new parts to be made.
Because the new kit wasn’t yet functional, he asked for his old sockets back so he could get around on his stubbies in the interim, but was told by a staff member at NZALS they were too busy.
“They just turned around and said we just don’t have time,” he told the Herald.
Since then, he’s hunted around for an expert who has the time and met Auckland-based prosthetist Lizzie Carey, who works independently of the national provider.
Winson said Carey was an expert in the latest technology, including the motorised legs he wanted to start using, and after “persistent” negotiating with ACC, it agreed to fund appointments with Carey.
He said Carey swiftly supplied the sockets for the power knees and the liners he needed for the little legs or stubbies – the latter being sorted in the space of a day – a process Winson believes would have taken the NZASL weeks.
“I think everybody should have a choice. I don’t believe I should be a special case [being funded to see an alternative provider]. The door should be wide open for anyone,” he said.
Winson said that while many would be satisfied with the service provided by NZALS, he believed others were fed up but would not speak up for fear of being disadvantaged.
“They are scared people might hold it against them,” he said.
Prosthetist and orthotist Lizzie Carey, who works independently of the NZALS for her company X-Tremity Prosthetics & Othotics, says ACC provides funding for a “very limited” number of her clients.
“It’s not even 1% of the amputees in the country that have access to this,” she told the Herald.
She said the current situation means NZALS has a “closed contract” which locks out competition.
Carey, who previously worked at NZALS, said getting approval from ACC to fund a new artificial limb means patients often languish immobile for months.
She said she had a situation where a patient “begged” her for help while waiting on a new leg from NZASL and ACC, and so she agreed to make them one quickly to alleviate their suffering.
However, she then found herself out of pocket.
“ACC refused to pay us for our work because the limb centre had already decided to try and make something else,” she said.
Ash told the Herald that alternative funding of appointments or supplying new kit must have approval first.
“If approved, ACC may reimburse costs at its standard rate. Any extra charges are the client’s responsibility, and unapproved items cannot be reimbursed,” he said.
Carey believes the delays worsen outcomes for patients and can have significant detrimental mental health impacts.
She said the current situation is at odds with the Health and Disability Act, which states patients should be able to choose their provider.
“The ACC feel that they’re giving patients choice, allowing them to come see us, but [they’re] not fully funding it. That’s not real choice, especially with six-month delays for approvals,” she said.
She said patients “deserve choice” but were being “blocked” by the system.
ACC Minister Scott Simpson said ACC’s contract with NZALS went through a competitive, open tender process.
He described issues relating to service delivery as “operational” and referred the Herald back to ACC.
Blue Butler lost his leg 37 years ago after being pinned beneath an opponent during a rugby match and snapping his leg.
He told the Herald he doesn’t like being a “squeaky wheel” but has found himself being forced to complain.
His socket doesn’t fit properly, and he said he hasn’t been properly mobile for two years because of pain when using his defective prosthetic.
“I’ve been legless for the last two summers. It’s just about driven me mad,” he told the Herald.
The 67-year-old is a builder and has been “trying to do bits and pieces” but can’t get stuck into big projects due to his mobility issues.
He said the limb centre has been unable to rectify the situation.
“My thigh was as red as a beetroot. I told them it [his socket] was too tight – but they didn’t listen,” he told the Herald.
“I have ulcers and am in pain.”
Butler takes pleasure in helping keep his local neighbourhood tidy and tries to walk the roadside near his house picking up rubbish when he’s not in pain.
He’s seeing Carey for appointments but isn’t sure if ACC will front the costs.
“They [ACC] don’t want to recognise any other carer,” he said.
He said while he had the means to pay Carey himself, there were many amputees out there who did not have that option.
Wayne Johnston, 75, lost his arm above the elbow after his hand got caught in a belt conveyor at Napier’s Pan Pac forestry mill in September 1978.
He first met Carey when she was employed by the limb centre, and is waiting to see if ACC will fund her to build him a new socket.
His current socket doesn’t fit correctly despite multiple attempts by staff at the limb centre to get it working.
“I would prefer to deal with her [Carey] because she knows what she’s doing,” he told the Herald.
“She fixed the mistakes of a couple of other limb fitters.”
Johnston’s myoelectric arm is powered by a battery pack. Technology has advanced considerably since he got his first prosthetic in 1979.
His fingers are individually motorised so he can grip items like a coffee cup or plate.
He felt some prosthetists at the limb centre “didn’t know what they were doing half the time”.
He first became concerned about the options available in New Zealand when he went to Australia to play amputee golf.
“I met up with some of the other amputees over there, and suddenly you find out what other prosthetics are available, and the limb centre [in New Zealand] has never told you about them,” he said.
Between January 2024 and May this year, the national artificial limb service has received 19 formal complaints from amputees.
However, NZASL chief Sean Gray told the Herald that overall, his organisation had an “incredibly high” satisfaction rating.
There are no New Zealand-based degree courses to train in prosthetics, so the NZASL relies on experts from overseas.
However, he said New Zealand “punches above its weight” in terms of providing good outcomes for amputees and being at the forefront of the latest innovations in prosthetics.
“We would be leading in 3D printing below knee sockets. Approximately 50% of low knee sockets are 3D printed for amputees in New Zealand,” he said.
He said product and technology education was provided on a quarterly basis, the NZASL had a dedicated product development team, and staff were “regularly” sent to local and international conferences.
“We have very good relationships with the suppliers of the high-tech componentry,” he said.
Gray didn’t shy away from the criticism levelled at his service by some clients, telling the Herald he welcomed the discussion.
“I acknowledge that we’ve always got opportunities for improvement. I’m generally disappointed that there are people that are frustrated with the service,” he said.
He said he “hoped we can help” those individuals profiled in the Herald’s story and invited those with concerns to contact him directly.
Michael Morrah is a senior investigative reporter/team leader at the Herald. He won News Journalist of the Year at the 2025 Voyager Media Awards and has twice been named reporter of the year at the NZ Television Awards. He has been a broadcast journalist for 20 years and joined the Herald’s video team in July 2024.