As many as 30,000 people have missed out on operations because of the lockdown.
Public hospitals stopped a lot of their non-life threatening surgery as they prepared for a possible wave of Covid-19 cases - and to restrict contact while at Alert Level 4.
Private hospitals have done very little surgery of any kind.
The president of the Private Surgical Hospitals Association, Richard Whitney, told RNZ health correspondent, Rowan Quinn, the delays have had a big impact.
