Surviving a broken health system (with gratitude)
Last month, our friend Helen Gilby was diagnosed with cancer. She recently had surgery to begin her treatment. There were complications, and Helen updated us with the following dispatch from the hospital. Helen would like to thank you all for the outpouring of support and really tangible help you've given her. She's been truly touched by how generous you've been in helping her through this ordeal. Arohanui Emily.
Feel free to skip to the comments if you read this in your email.
I'm currently scribbling this post seven days post-readmission, after what was originally a very good surgery to remove a bit of cancer that tried to make itself at home in my body.
I was looking forward to gloating about how tough I am and how good I am at bouncing back. But just a couple of days after being discharged, I was brought back to the hospital by ambulance in excruciating pain and absolutely terrified to know that something had suddenly gone so wrong.
Unfortunately, I had a very rare issue and ended up with sepsis. No gloating for me.
My time in the hospital has shown me how precarious the health system is and the pressures that it puts on staff and care.
I've spent the majority of this stay only a step or two down from ICU-level care. I've felt incredibly vulnerable and scared. When you're so vulnerable for every aspect of your care, you really see how intense the demands are on clinical staff and how much pressure they face.
During my stay I’ve become very aware of how many moving parts sit behind patient care, and how much the system relies on support roles working well together. I’ve seen nurses and orderlies trying to manage with equipment that isn’t working properly (my bed currently only moves backwards and one day, two out of four lifts were out of order), and at times supplies like dressings have run out and needed to be tracked down from elsewhere in the hospital. I also had to wait several days for compression stockings while staff tried to locate a pair that would fit over my swelling.
Watching this trapped in my bed, really highlighted how important those behind-the-scenes support systems are. When equipment isn’t maintained, when stock isn’t readily available, or when support staff are stretched thin, it’s the nurses who end up carrying that burden while still trying to care for patients. It made me realise how interconnected everything is in a hospital environment. The small, practical systems that keep things running quietly in the background make a huge difference to whether frontline staff can focus on the job they are actually there to do. When those systems are under pressure, often because of wider resourcing and funding pressures, it inevitably adds strain to work that is already incredibly demanding.
For the first few days, it felt like I had more pumps, drains and infusions coming in and out of me than I could count. I could hardly move an arm without setting off a machine. The level of care you need to do something as simple as drinking a sip of water makes it so time-consuming for the people caring for you. You need them for everything. That's a huge responsibility they carry in a broken system.
And the system is broken.
While I was in hospital:
- Kidney patients in Christchurch were being warned dialysis treatment may have to be rationed because of staffing shortages and a lack of space at the hospital.
- It was revealed that the Government slashed Health NZ’s IT workforce, despite being told of the risks to patient care.
- Health NZ confirmed its second IT outage in less than a month.
- Around 5500 Waikato Health NZ staff not paid overnight due to glitch.
- The Counselling Workforce Report 2026 revealed counselling costs and long waiting lists are locking people out of mental health care at the same time as the Government has cut funding for community support.
Good people are being burnt out. Nurses and the functioning of the wider hospital support systems are an ecosystem that works together, but who is working for them? They rely on each other to be functional. All needs must be properly resourced to work, and at the moment, they really aren’t.
I am so grateful to my support crew right now. From calling ambulances to feeding my cats, taking dogs to the kennels, and looking after my kids, I've had incredible support.
I wish that for everyone. And it starts with a well-resourced, properly funded health system. We will likely all depend on the health system at one point or another.
If you're unlucky like me, it will come when you least expect it. If you're lucky like me, you'll survive thanks to the skill, effort, energy, and dedication of nurses, doctors, surgeons, and clinic staff.
I hope that when I am on the other side of this, I'll be in a position to repay these efforts through commitment to advocacy for a system that we can all be proud of.
Emily here again - please do donate to help Helen and her family out. She is brave and incredible, but her family need as much help as they can get.
