Hospital radiology services suffering surging demand, lack of investment report shows

RNZ News

21 hours ago

The report was produced by APEX which is the union representing over 1500 Medical Imaging Technologists and 350 sonographers.
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A new report has slammed the state of the country's hospital radiology services saying inadequate staff numbers and a lack of investment is 'unravelling' the sector.
The report from APEX - the union representing over 1500 Medical Imaging Technologists (MIT) and 350 sonographers - showed 102,446 patients on radiology waiting lists nationwide (as of March 2026) with over half of the country's departments reporting inadequate staffing levels.
The report based on a national survey of APEX members and data obtained through Official Information Act requests said more than 44 percent of MIT staff surveyed said they were working with broken, outdated, or unsafe equipment.
APEX national secretary Dr Deborah Powell told RNZ the report outlined how deeply the sector "had fallen into disarray".
"Understaffed and exhausted teams, working with broken equipment are finding it impossible to provide safe and timely services as demand for medical imaging surges," Powell said.
She said waiting lists were growing "across the board" - even for people with conditions requiring urgent attention.
"In Auckland... acute or urgent scans people are on the waiting list - which is pretty much unheard of really. If you're acute or urgent you get straight in but we're now seeing a waiting list growing for those sorts of patients," Powell said.
She said the revelation the health system had spent over $100 million outsourcing radiology services to private providers in the last year was at the core of the problem.
"It seems to be easier to pay the cost of outsourcing than get our staffing and machinery fixed in-house. If that money had been reinvested in sufficient staff and sufficient equipment then we believe we would've achieved far more than that and in a far more cost effective way," Powell said.
Five hospitals - Taranaki, Bay of Plenty, Auckland, Capital & Coast and Hutt - reported MIT staffing level as approaching crisis point.
"Our people are exhausted, they're burnt out. Patients are not getting the service they want. They're getting frustrated [and] sometimes they take it out on staff. So we are seeing our people leaving the public sector and going and working for the private sector. That's a double whammy.
"We are getting to the point where our guys are just so tired they can't keep doing this - the risk of mistakes goes up - and the only option is to outsource which in actual fact exacerbates our problem," Powell said.
She said Te Whatu Ora needed to lift the current hiring freeze, implement a national plan for the replacement of technology and redirect funding diverted to outsourcing back into the public system.
Te Whatu Ora has been approached for comment.
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