‘Significant’ ICT outage disrupts hospitals in Wellington, Wairarapa

Wellington Regional Hospital is one of the multiple affected hospitals. Photo / Mark Mitchell

A “significant” ICT outage causing disruptions at multiple Wellington and Wairarapa hospitals was caused by an overheating issue, Te Whatu Ora Health New Zealand says.

The outage is causing disruption to systems at Wellington Regional Hospital, Kenepuru Community Hospital, Hutt Hospital and Wairarapa Hospital, Te Whatu Ora confirmed.

“As a result of the issue, anyone coming to hospital this morning for outpatient appointments, or planned care and procedures, may experience delays or disruption,” it said in a statement.

“The fault was identified at approximately 4am today and was caused by an internal cooling infrastructure failure that caused a number of servers to overheat and shut down. Applications running on those servers automatically switched to the remaining servers, however the increased load has caused disruption and delays to a range of both clinical and support systems.”

The cooling issue has now been resolved and services are in the process of being restored.

Te Whatu Ora confirmed there was no external cause or influence contributing to the outage.

“Hospital services continue to see patients for outpatient appointments and planned care and procedures – however patients may experience delays due to our systems currently running more slowly than usual.

“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 minimum.”

Anyone needing emergency or urgent care would continue to receive it, and anyone unsure of whether they needed urgent care should contact their GP or medical centre, it said. People could also call Healthline on 0800 611 116 for advice.

People experiencing emergencies should still call 111.