Demand ‘skyrockets’ as Hamilton urgent care helps struggling ED

Tuesday, 28 July 2026

A Hamilton doctor has highlighted the role urgent care clinics play in taking pressure off overstrained hospitals amid a spike of “Super K” winter flu virus.

Dr Tonye Onyemelukwe is an urgent care doctor at Tui Medical Te Rapa, where the 24/7 clinic sees about 200 patients a day — double the summertime average.

Onyemelukwe estimated that about half of the patients coming through the clinic had first been to Waikato Hospital ED, and had an emergency voucher.

“Unless it's a flu where the patient is quite unwell…coughs and colds should be managed in the community, the only reason it's generally not is because of the cost,” he said.

The vouchers were given out at triage reception and covered or reduced the cost of seeking primary care, rather than hospital care.

“Demand on our end now skyrockets because of that, but also it takes a lot of pressure off the hospital system, you know. So we get a flow of people coming in our after hours with these vouchers.”

Vouchers covered the full cost of an appointment with Tui, he said.

It was a “nice little treat” for patients struggling with the cost of living, who might otherwise not seek help. Tui’s website puts the casual urgent care charge for those with no Community Services Card or High User Health Card at $210.

The voucher system had been in place for a long time, but was now much more publicised, and the ED was keen for people to be moved on to seek help quickly.

This follows the death of a patient in Waikato Hospital’s ED after a wait of nine hours last month.

“They're definitely trying to relocate their resources outwards, so that they don't have such terrible outcomes like they did earlier this year.”

It was a helpful system that was part of why the urgent care clinic was currently so busy.

“We definitely are seeing the demand skyrocket, it’s not the worst it's ever been, but definitely the winter demand is coming as well.”

Doctors were aware of what to expect with this year’s seasonal flu because European countries had already experienced the same virus during their winter, he said.

“This Super K, the new bug, is very highly contagious for adults, not so much the kid populace, which is a bit of a relief.”

Despite the dramatic name, Super K was causing less pressure than last year’s seasonal flu. Last winter, they were easily seeing more than 300 patients a day, he said.

Last year, about 90% of the people they saw had a flu-related illness, whereas this year it was down to about 60%.

Because older adults were more likely to be vaccinated against influenza, it was actually younger and middle-aged adults who were most likely to be impacted.

He recommended that people get their flu jab, as vaccination could help reduce how severely people became ill, even though it would not necessarily prevent them from getting sick.

An area where the winter was tracking better than expected was whooping cough — which he also encouraged people to be vaccinated against. There had been about 400 hospitalisations for the highly contagious respiratory disease throughout the country.

“Thankfully, for whatever reason, that never exploded as much as we were prepared for, which is always good.”