Patients' safety 'not in danger'

By John Armstrong

Waitemata Health insists that its patients will be safe, despite a State Services Commission report showing the hospital service lagging behind nationwide efforts to ensure Y2K compliance.

The commission's monitoring team found hospitals in Wellington and Hawkes Bay also falling outside the tolerable margin of millennium bug readiness when computers switch in six months to the year 2000.

Also listed as unsatisfactory were the police, who are now upgrading the Wanganui Computer to be compliant by next month.

Police National Headquarters reiterated that the critical element in its operations - the emergency 111 "Card" system - had been certified as Y2K-compliant. Despite that, it would be double-checked in August and September.

The commission survey - released yesterday and the second such assessment of state agencies since October - covered progress to the end of March.

It found that nearly 70 per cent of the 59 "high impact" agencies covering health, law and order, communications and national security were on target or better. A further 22 per cent were within the tolerable margin.

Waitemata Health's deficiencies included delays in the testing and implementation of core systems because of late delivery of software. Also lacking were an enterprise-wide project manager and a detailed planning document.

But the hospital provider said yesterday that its equipment would be compliant within a couple of months.

Chief executive Dwayne Crombie said Waitemata Health was not in a competition to be first. It had now checked 90 per cent of its bio-medical equipment and turned up only three non-compliant items, none of which was life-threatening or critical to maintaining services.

The State Services Commission reported that other high-impact state enterprises involved in the crucial area of electricity generation and distribution, such as Transpower, had shown a general level of readiness.