Health NZ paying thousands to fly gynae cancer patients south
Friday, 2 January 2026
Health NZ has spent $26,000 sending North Island patients south for complex gynaecological cancer surgery, after the Wellington service collapsed.
It spent another $12,000 flying a specialist over from Australia to plug gaps in the over-stretched Christchurch service that is now treating them.
Lower North Island women have had to travel south for complex surgery since the capital’s service collapsed in November 2024, when its sole remaining gynae oncologist resigned.
When The Post asked Health NZ how much it spent on travel for the 59 women sent south from January 1 to September 30, it took two months to provide the figures.
The agency spent $23,624 flying Wellington region patients south for surgery, $2199 on Wairarapa patients and $407 for Lakes district women.
MidCentral and Hawke’s Bay districts failed to provide data.
Asked whether those costs included accommodation, Health NZ failed to respond. The agency’s National Travel Assistance scheme pays out accommodation at $140 a night, and stays for difficult gynae cancer surgery can exceed a week.
Kāpiti woman Daryl Evans was sent to Christchurch for surgery for her stage four ovarian cancer. Health NZ paid for her and her support person’s flights, airport taxi transfers and accommodation for 10 nights.
While the travel funding was appreciated, it would be better spent rebuilding the capital’s specialist service, so Wellington women didn’t have to endure the added trauma of travelling hundreds of kilometres from home for treatment, Evans said.
“That was a godsend that they did pay for it, but mentally, physically and financially - it was just a huge, taxing cost.
“We should be putting that money back into somehow getting these surgeons into gynae.”
As well as sending patients south, Health NZ is sending surgeons north. Once a month, a Christchurch gynae oncologist heads to Wellington to operate on lower complexity cancers that need less after-care, such as cervical, uterine and vulval cancers.
With the Christchurch service also one surgeon down because of illness, the extra patients and travel meant their two remaining gynaecological cancer surgeons were “doing the work of six people”, Christchurch surgeon Peter Sykes told The Post in October.
As a result - from May until October 2025 - Health NZ flew over an Australian surgeon to reduce the strain, at a cost of $12,000 on flights, accommodation and car hire.
Christchurch has since recruited an extra surgeon, and another is due to start in January.
Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists president Gillian Gibson previously said it was “quite shocking” that the capital city had been left without a specialist service.
“It’s just not sustainable. These are highly complex cancer operations. They’re hard work. And women deserve safe and timely care closer to home.”
A 2023 submission to the Health Ministry called the country’s gynae cancer specialist service “critically understaffed and highly vulnerable”.
The country also struggles to keep the specialists it trains, with only one of the past eight gynae oncology trainees still working here.
Health NZ has said work was under way to consider the best long-term approach, but there were no plans to recruit to Wellington for the next four to five years. In the meantime, women would continue to be sent to Christchurch or Auckland for surgery.
Meanwhile Evans is spending her holiday break in Northland, reading, swimming, boating, fishing, stroking stingrays and welcoming in a new year that many never expected her to see.
“Since this has all happened, everyone says, do what you love and do what you want. And that's what I want to do, so that's what I'm doing.”