Rowan Quinn

An estimated 30,000 people have missed out on surgery because of the Covid-19 lockdown.

Last minute - sometimes random - testing is being done in a handful of areas as the Ministry of Health looks to fill gaps in its Covid-19 data.

Burwood Hospital general manager Dan Coward says frontline workers only had access to full face visors and the safer N95 masks since yesterday.

New guidelines for health workers' access to masks and other protective gear are being criticised as more about rationing than caring for staff. Audio

Electronic bracelets should be strongly considered for travellers arriving from overseas, prominent scientist Nick Wilson says.

The Australasian College of Emergency Medicine is changing its guidelines to say frontline hospital staff should wear ordinary surgical masks when dealing with all patients.

Hutt Hospital has created a new intensive care unit in less than two weeks, as hospitals around the country race to prepare for Covid-19.

Thousands of fertility treatments have been cancelled or postponed because the services are not considered essential.

Some doctors are sending their children away from home during the lockdown as they struggle with childcare while working on the Covid-19 frontline.

Hospitals are planning to cancel operations and convert theatres to intensive care units if needed to keep people alive in a Covid-19 outbreak.

The man who led New Zealand's response to the last global pandemic says buying time is critical to how the Covid-19 will impact on New Zealand.

People in rest homes could be in dire circumstances if the coronavirus hits and they don't get enough back up from district health boards, says a retirement village chief executive. Video, Audio

GPs have run out of masks and other protective gear and say that makes them vulnerable to the novel coronavirus, while the government holds on to 18 million masks. Audio

Delayed breast cancer diagnoses for 35 women shows South Aucklanders are victims of an almost third-world health system, Cancer Society chief executive Mike Kernaghan says.

Thirty-five South Auckland women had their diagnoses of breast cancer delayed last year as Counties Manukau DHB struggles to see patients on time.

New Zealanders quarantined on the Diamond Princess cruise ship may risk another two weeks stranded in Japan if they don't board an evacuation flight due to leave the country tomorrow. Video

New Zealanders trapped on a cruise ship amid the Covid-19 coronavirus outbreak may finally be about to head home, but face being quarantined again when they return.

New Zealanders aged 15-to-29, the age group that helped to fuel last year's measles outbreak, will be targeted in a new government immunisation programme.

Some Ōpōtiki women are worried they will be left waiting in a dark carpark to be let into the birthing unit, as it reopens with limitations.

An intellectually disabled man was subject to repeated sexually aggressive behaviour while on a IHC-run job programme, a report says.

Lollies, chippies and high sugar products should have to come in plain packs like cigarettes, the Northland District Health Board says.

Surgical mesh patients have described losing their jobs, their love lives and their will to live in a report that paints a bleak picture of the fall out from the toxic implants.

Auckland Council's first budget plan since declaring a climate emergency does not indicate any major spending increase on the area, but proposes to cut its own emissions by 20 percent.

An Auckland MRI technician says staff are running between patients as they try to get their work done and slash growing backlogs.

Auckland could be without a major port if recommendations delivered to the government are adopted.