Emergency departments are busier and sicker: what the first stocktake shows
Emergency departments in Aotearoa New Zealand saw more than 1.4 million visits a year, up 21 percent since 2015-16.
The figure comes from the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine's first 'State of Emergency' report, based on Health New Zealand data from 40 hospitals RNZ. Over the same period the population grew 13 percent. Visits grew faster than population.
Patients are sicker as well as more numerous. In 2024-25, 66 percent were triaged — sorted on arrival by how urgent their care is — as high urgency, categories one to three on the Australasian Triage Scale. That share was 55 percent in 2015-16. Māori presentations rose 39 percent between 2015-16 and 2024-25.
Hospital bed numbers have not kept up. Between 2015 and 2024, inpatient beds fell from 2.7 to 2.5 for every 1000 people. The OECD average was 4.2 per 1000 in 2023. ACEM Aotearoa New Zealand council chair Dr Michael Connelly said "treating patients in corridors was an everyday occurrence in emergency departments."
The supply of new emergency doctors remains thin. New specialists made up 7.4 percent of the emergency specialist workforce in 2025. Health funding had almost doubled since 2017-18. Funding is up. Bed and staff capacity is not.
Australia's public hospitals recorded 9.1 million emergency department visits in 2024-25, at a rate of 328 visits for every 1000 people AIHW. Earlier ACEM work estimated 13-16 percent of emergency visits across Australia and New Zealand were alcohol-related ACEM. A 2020 survey put the Australia-wide average at 13 percent at the time of the survey, with Western Australia at 22 percent RACGP.
Looking at what this means for the Beehive, the numbers narrow the political options. Funding growth has not lifted beds per person or eased the urgent load at the front door. Health New Zealand runs patient flow through 40 hospitals, but ministers set the rules for buildings, staffing and accountability for equity. The 39 percent rise in Māori presentations will sharpen questions in the House and at select committee about access to family doctors and whether pressure in emergency departments points to problems elsewhere.
The broader context here is one officials know well. Emergency departments sit at the end of the system. When beds fall against population and high-urgency cases rise from 55 to 66 percent, corridors act as wards and wait times become the public test of the health system. A pipeline with 7.4 percent new specialists does not point to fast relief. For a Government that has increased health spending in dollar terms, ACEM's first national stocktake shifts the debate from how much is spent to what that spending buys in beds, staff and timely acute care.
