Inside NZ's Hospital CrisisAmanda Gillies The DetailFrom waiting room tragedies to crumbling hospital buildings, NZ's health system is on 'a slow descent into crisis'The health headlines for this July alone make for grim reading. A patient dies after collapsing in a hospital waiting room toilet, another slips in the shower while trying to squash cockroaches, with fleas reported nearby. Few stories have captured the crisis more starkly than the death of a Waikato Hospital patient who collapsed in a toilet after waiting around nine hours to be seen. "The consensus is … to fix this is going to take years because of that long period we spent underfunding the health system." For someone who covers the health system every day, this is perhaps the clearest indication yet of just how much confidence has been shaken.