Computer failure hits Waikato Hospital

1.00pm

A computer failure at Waikato Hospital has left thousands of the region's health workers out of pocket and forced the manual processing of patient records.

The computer server that holds Waikato District Health Board's payroll and patient information, including blood tests, x-rays and appointments, went down at 9am on Wednesday.

The server was still not working today and it was not known when it would be fixed.

Two thirds of the 5000 health board staff across five hospitals and a several clinics were affected.

Health Board chief executive Jan White said all staff's base pay was still going into their bank accounts, but extras for shift work and overtime could not be processed.

Dr White said he did not know how much money had not been paid to employees, but it was likely the amount was significant.

A phone number set up for staff to call if the breakdown had left them with "undue hardship" was swamped with requests yesterday morning.

Staff would be back paid within half a day of the server being fixed.

There had been no delays to operations, Dr White said.

- NZPA