University of Otago researchers poring over blood samples uncovered a trend in adult New Zealanders that rattled health officials.

After a gap of four decades, mothers suffering from severe mental illness will at last be able to be admitted to an Auckland psychiatric unit with their babies.

More ambulances are needed in Auckland to cope with ever-increasing 111 calls and relieve the burden on over-worked paramedics, according to the new St John boss.

Meegan Hirst struggled with mental illnesses after the births of her second and third babies. The 43-year-old Te Atatu Peninsula woman's boys are now 17, 16 and 2.

Help is on the way for new mothers suffering from severe mental illnesses.

Patients in closed mental health wards at Waitemata District Health Board are allowed out for cigarettes as a reward for good behaviour, a patient alleges.

On any number of counts, the New Zealand Public Health and Disability Amendment Bill represents a particularly sorry piece of law-making.

Parents from some low-income Auckland suburbs face paying up to $25 for young children to see a doctor at an after-hours clinic.

Sending badly injured children to the wrong hospital may be contributing to a child death rate from injuries that is twice the rate of Australia's.

St John has admitted an initiative to replace ambulances with single-crew vehicles has backfired, resulting in longer waits for some patients.

The Govt finds itself without any tools to combat the rising tide of dietary diseases, and this is undermining its ability to meet its own health goals, writes Sue Kedgley.

On what should have been his fifth wedding anniversary, Praveen Halappanavar was instead at a coroner's court, hearing a jury deliver a verdict of medical misadventure in the death of his wife.

Thirty-three Auckland City Hospital workers have been disciplined for snooping at x-rays and other information on the man who had an eel removed from inside him.

Kerre McIvor says the suggestion that hospital food be prepared centrally and shipped nationally is absurd.

New Zealand seems to think dental care is one of those things that is "nice to have".

The non-pressurised plane has made 40 per cent fewer flights than expected. A flying medical service expected to save $200,000 is under review after nose-diving into debt.

A New Zealand mother who lost a court battle in Britain to stop her 8-year-old son from receiving radiation therapy for cancer says her worst fears over the treatment have been realised.

"How many die in New Zealand hospitals from bugs they pick up within the health care facilities they've come to to get cured of something else?" asks Brian Rudman.

The licensed use of a controversial blood-thinning medicine has been restricted after a trial linked it to higher rates of stroke and other serious complications in certain patients.

Theo de Heer's family are looking forward to taking the 5-year-old to an American conference.

Middlemore Hospital is scrapping the longstanding rule of "visiting hours" restrictions for the close family of patients.

The results of the Government's target for 95 per cent of patients to be admitted to a ward, discharged or transferred within six hours have been largely rewarding.

A Kiwi mum who lost a battle to prevent the British health service giving her son radiation therapy for a brain tumour says the treatment has been worse than she feared.

A leaked document threatens to sabotage an ambitious bid for an $800,000 "tele-medicine" scheme for remote Far North schools.

Dr Lance O'Sullivan says he would not see most of Kaitaia's children with skin infections if he didn't go into schools to look for them.

Waikato, Capital and Coast are the worst-performing DHBs in the country when it comes to the Government's push for emergency department waits shorter than six hours.