Te Kuiti Hospital
Concerns surrounding Te Kūiti Hospital’s patient bed numbers have literally been put to bed by Taranaki-King Country MP Barbara Kuriger.
Locals recently raised the alarm that Te Kūiti Hospital had decreased bed numbers, potentially jeopardising the capacity of localised care the rural hospital could offer.
Worried about what she was hearing from the public, Kuriger went to Health New Zealand (HNZ) to find some answers to the questions she was being asked.
Kuriger told The News Te Kūiti Hospital’s bed numbers had recently decreased from 12 to seven due to lack of use in recent years.
According to HNZ statistics, eight or more beds were used just four times between July 2024 and May 2026, justifying the decision to decrease the bed numbers, Kuriger said.
“Because it’s below seven most of the time, they’ve drawn the line at seven, but they’ve assured me that if we need eight, nine or 12 at any point in time, they will ramp things up to make sure it happens,” Kuriger said.
“My main point to them was I don’t want anyone from Te Kūiti to be having to go out of Te Kūiti if we could have had more beds there,” she said.
Based on the numbers, Kuriger said she was satisfied Te Kūiti Hospital wasn’t losing the level of health care service.
“At this stage, I feel reassured the beds will be there when people need them and they’ve landed on a good number,” Kuriger said.
“I’ll be watching in the future because I was really disappointed when I first started getting contacted. The announcement had just been that we were going to have cancer treatment at the hospital and I was like, ‘Why are they doing that and doing this?’. It just seemed a bit odd that we were ramping it up and then we were cutting it back,” she said.
Waikato group director of operations Stephanie Doe said Te Kūiti Hospital’s bed capacity was based on demand and recognised the importance of rural hospitals to the communities they serve.
“We recognise the important role rural hospitals, such as Te Kūiti Hospital, play in providing closer-to-home care for their local communities,” Doe said.
“Te Kūiti Hospital is currently operating with the appropriate number of inpatient beds to meet clinical demand. This is around seven beds per day. No beds have been lost and demand and capacity are monitored daily, and if required, we can open additional beds to meet patient demand,” she said.
Kuriger said it was now up to HNZ to ensure a high level of health care for locals was maintained.
“I can see why people were concerned because I was pretty concerned when I first heard it too, but I’m satisfied; I’ll still be watching,” Kuriger said.
“The proof’s going to be in the pudding now that when it does go above seven, that no one’s travelling out of town. If we had one or two cases of that, we might end up forming another opinion, but at the moment, I’m happy they’ve got it under control with what they’ve told me,” she said.
A recent report from the Resident Doctor’s Association and Apex Union has highlighted “untapped capacity” in many rural hospitals that could limit the burden on New Zealand’s health system.
The report suggested Te Kūiti Hospital was operating at 67.1 percent capacity, well under the 85 percent best-practice threshold for bed use.
