Your views

A woman died after allegedly waiting more than three hours to be seen in an overcrowded Christchurch emergency department, highlighting the nation’s medical sector woes. Herald readers shared their views.

Carla King

Our healthcare system is well and truly broken! Decades of neglect by successive governments and pressure post-Covid has created this mess. After-hours doctors should be funded to allow people to access this care instead of free care at our EDs. Maybe it’s time to get the GP services out to the communities as we did for vaccinations.

Krystel Carston

I was in ED for nine hours in total and waited five hours before seeing a doctor. All I can say is it is insane the amount of patients and workload that goes on! They are also short-staffed. I could never do their job, crazy stressful.

Tara George

I waited nine hours with my girl for her broken foot. There was a lady before us who had been in there for a solid 12 hours with a severed leg who drove herself from Bombay Hills because the ambulance wouldn’t get out there for 3-5 hours.

Chels Richards

So terribly sad she spent her last hours in that waiting room waiting for help she desperately needed that didn’t come until things were that dire. Condolences to the whānau.