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 bill which would give three free health checks by a GP every year to holders of the Supergold card failed to pass its first reading in Parliament tonight by 60 to 61.

New Zealand's rate of perinatal death has dipped but our rate of maternal suicide is seven times greater than Britain's, new figures reveal.

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.

Kiwi inventor Sir Ray Avery is getting help from dozens of artists around the world to raise money for lifesaving baby incubators.

The death of a woman who was part of a Middlemore Hospital study will be analysed afresh by a coroner, 11 years after her death.

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.

The Ministry of Health has released the names of the 11 clinics which had not opted into the "zero fees" scheme for under 6s.

In a new attempt to control New Zealand's obesity epidemic, severely overweight patients will have a stomach drain installed through which they pump out excess food.