Wellington Hospital ED hits 'code red' almost twice a day
Wednesday, 21 January 2026
Wellington Hospital’s emergency department has been hitting critical “code red” status, meaning too many patients for staff to deal with, almost twice every day on average.
That compares with 2024 when the entire hospital did not enter the most-critical phase once during the entire year. An Official Information Act request by Labour to Te Whatu Ora Health NZ showed the emergency department hit the grade 575 times from January to October 2025.
Code red is the fourth and final step in a traffic light system that matches staff availability and patient demand. Red is defined as a “critical care capacity deficit”.
Meanwhile about half of all patients presenting to the emergency department were seen within the Government’s six-hour target, well short of the 95% of patients it set in 2024.
An average of 325 patients per month did not wait to be admitted. A Te Whatu Ora report found a correlation between patients who left and death, with the amount of people who left an ED and then died within 30 days doubling from 2016-2019 to 2022-2023.
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“We are in code red the majority of the 24 hours,” said a Wellington Hospital staff member and Nurses’ Organisation (NZNO) delegate, who would not be identified. One patient on Monday ended up spending 39 hours in the emergency department but there had been previous cases of 100 hours or more.
The big hold up was when patients needed to be checked into a specialty but that ward did not have the capacity, meaning there were times 100 patients were in the emergency department, which had space for about 40.
“It’s never nice to have elderly [patients] in the hallways.”
There could be up to three code reds a day.
“You can come in in the morning shift on a red alert and it can last a couple of days.”
Another NZNO delegate and staff member who The Post agreed to keep anonymous said staff were always working to keep a lid on what they described as a “crisis”.
It meant rushing between patients, often with only one to two minutes to give treatment before they had to move to the next.
“The unpredictability of an emergency department means sometimes we’re going to get really slammed without any sort of warning and you're just hoping we've got the staff power that day to deal with it.”
During code reds, they said patient to staff ratio increased to five to six patients per nurse, up from around three to four patients on regular shifts.
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Association of Salaried Medical Specialists (ASMS) executive director Sarah Dalton said regular reports of code reds showed a failing health system.
Staffing and bed shortages, along with limited GP access, were driving the overload - and it was shortening careers, she said, with doctors more prone to burnout.
Health Minister Simeon Brown said Wellington’s ED had “unacceptable wait times and is one of the lowest performing in the country”.
A redevelopment of Wellington Hospital’s ED was funded in Budget 2025, while the Government told Health NZ to extend hours for urgent and after‑hours care in central Wellington. There was also a funding boost for more frontline staff.
“I have been very clear with Health New Zealand that the current situation at Wellington ED is not good enough for patients or staff, and I expect to see improvements,” Brown said. A spokesperson for his office said ED performance nationally “deteriorated significantly” under the previous Labour government.
But Labour health spokesperson Dr Ayesha Verrall blamed government funding shortages for the current crisis..
“Around 10 people a day leave ED before they are seen, leaving their conditions untreated, and potentially making them worse,” she said.
About 600,000 New Zealanders, with Wellingtonians paying the most, could not afford to go to GPs, “meaning more end up sicker and in emergency departments”, she said.
“Only Labour will stop Luxon’s health cuts, rebuild our health system and make it cheaper, easier and faster to get care close to home.” Labour pledged a range of primary health initiatives, including three free GP visits per year, to prevent illness and free up hospitals.
Health NZ Capital Coast and Hutt Valley operations director Jamie Duncan said there was “work to do” at the Wellington ED but some measures were improving, such as shorter stays in the department.
A new Wellington ED was being built, starting in 2027 and expected to open in 2029. A recent government funding boost meant 10 new staff for the department.