Minister told Stuff a month ago that new Waikato Hospital beds were on track. Now he says they’re not

Friday, 3 July 2026

A planned 28-bed modular ward at Waikato Hospital, intended to free up capacity in the struggling emergency department, has been delayed from the second half of 2026 until 2027.

Minister of Health Simeon Brown confirmed the delay the same week a patient died in a toilet at the hospital after waiting nine hours to be seen in the ED.

The minister stated that site selection has been an issue due to its tight location in a car park close to the hospital helipad, requiring potential extra infrastructure and insulation.

The Nurses Organisation says staff are struggling with extreme capacity, revealing the ED had 300 patients in a single day earlier this month, leaving some without a seat or a bed.

Minister of Health Simeon Brown has confirmed that a modular ward planned for Waikato Hospital, which would free up beds in the emergency department and promote faster urgent care, has been delayed until next year.

This comes the same week that a patient died in a toilet at the hospital after waiting for nine hours to be seen in the emergency department.

The new ward was announced in November 2025 – along with four others in other locations – and promised to add 28 beds. Those beds would be in a new, modular building that would be constructed off-site and installed and operational in the second half of 2026.

The unit would mean non-urgent patients could be removed from the emergency department, freeing up beds for waiting cases.

Nurses union delegate and Waikato Hospital ED nurse Tracy Chisholm told Stuff in May that it would provide somewhere for non-urgent patients to go if they had been referred by their GP to see a specialist doctor, for example.

“Other hospitals have admission and planning units. People who arrive from their GP don’t go to ED, they go there. But Waikato doesn’t have an effective unit like that. This new building was going to be that increased capacity,” she said.

In the wake of this week’s death, New Zealand Nurses Organisation President Anne Daniels flagged bed capacity as a reason her union is “extremely concerned” about the hospital.

“Nurses at Waikato ED are struggling to keep up with the sheer number of patients walking through the door,” she said. “Earlier this month they had 300 patients in a single day. Sometimes there isn’t even a seat left, let alone a bed.”

Stuff asked Brown for an update on the ward in late May, after Chisholm said there was no sign of work on the site.

A spokesperson from his office said at the time that work was continuing to “deliver the programme on the timelines announced in November”.

In other words, in the second half of this year.

Now, Brown has admitted that the project is delayed – with expected delivery sometime in 2027.

“Current programme assumptions anticipate practical completion in 2027 with the facility expected to become operational shortly after,” he said on Thursday, responding to questions from Labour’s Ayesha Verrall.

“I’m advised the site selection has been an issue which has had to be worked through due to it being quite close to the helipad.”

Chisholm told Stuff in May that these issues were obvious to anyone who worked there.

“It was clear to us that you can't just dump a building in the carpark. It would involve elevators and lifts and significant building work,” she said.

She said the proposed site was not on the same level as the emergency department, meaning ramp and lift access would be required.

Brown admitted on Thursday that “it is quite a tight site in terms of the infrastructure at Waikato Hospital” and the helipad’s proximity means “potentially some additional infrastructure and insulation” would be required.

But Verrall said he should have known about the site’s suitability from the get go.

“It matters right now,” she said. “People wait for too long in that emergency department and – as we've seen – with tragic consequences at times.

“The patients don't have a place to go, and so they back up in the emergency department and new patients can't be seen.”