Some Kiwis are travelling as far as India for operations, complaining of long waiting lists and high costs at home.

All Priyashna Kumar wants to do is live a normal life and go to school like others her age.

The family of a pensioner who died after being given a drug that her MedicAlert bracelet warned she was allergic to have welcomed a probe into her death.

Queeny Penhall and Damian Young lost one baby, another suffered complications and a third is on the same track, all due to what the parents and some specialists consider to be gaps in New Zealand's maternity care.

Hospital staff are being punched, kicked, spat on, bitten and verbally abused daily on the job - and the problem is getting worse.

An estimated 2500 people showed up to protest proposed funding cuts to Oamaru hospital today.

More New Zealanders will be able to get free doctors' visits as part of a raft of changes which come into force today.

A health watchdog is "alarmed" an elderly psychiatric hospital patient was left lying on a bedroom floor for more than nine hours.

Starship's flight team have welcomed a new air ambulance, decked in a starry blue livery and equipped with a range of life-saving, state-of-the-art equipment.

A health board and one of its emergency doctors breached the code of patients’ rights in their care of a woman with a spinal infection.

A pensioner died an "agonising and needless" death after hospital staff administered a drug that a MedicAlert bracelet she wore warned she was allergic to.

For Auckland amputee Diane Smith, it matters that the technicians who worked on her artificial leg included a former bulldozer driver.

The commercial mindset that measures well-being in terms of GDP can be insidious, writes Tim Hazledine. Even the welcome focus on reducing child poverty gets justified (by some) as an "investment" in more reliable future workers.

Private medical notes about 90 patients - including details of a woman suffering mental illness after childbirth - were stolen from a social worker's car.

The most vulnerable are likely to suffer with the introduction of 'social bonds' for the private sector, writes Dita De Boni.

Women seeking an abortion are being offered easier access to the procedure with a free, national telephone consultation service that started this week.

For Maori and other ethnicities, the rates have declined, producing a widening gap in health-care inequalities which is of concern, say researchers.

Tech company Orion Health says its latest $61m loss is in line with its strategy to grow revenue before profits.

Nurses, midwives and health care assistants at 20 District Health Boards (DHBs) have rejected a proposed collective agreement.

Editorial: Force-feeding has never been a feature of the humble dairy, yet suddenly it finds itself in the business of public health.

Transsexual former MP Georgina Beyer does not believe taxpayer-funded sex-change surgery should be available "off the rack".

The Children's Commissioner wants a rethink of universal services so more public spending can go to the neediest families.

Patients in New Zealand have become the first in the world to receive an experimental treatment for type 2 diabetes.

New study suggests Kiwi men diagnosed with prostate cancer die sooner than those in Britain, and part of the reason may be poorly organised treatment.

The death of Jim Nicholls on the operating table was the fifth gallbladder case in two years that drew attention to surgeon Michael Parry.

A district health board has been putting patients on a "suspended" waiting list for surgery until it can fit them in within the Government's new target of four months, a senior manager's memo indicates.

A major shift to more voucher-type funding of social services, including health and education, is proposed in a new official report.