This year our colleagues at the New Zealand Consumer Advocacy Alliance are running a ‘Light It Orange’ for Patient Safety & Health System Safety campaign. This is to recognize World Patient Safety Day on 17 September.
A National Patient Safety Forum will be held in Auckland and live-streamed nationwide. Patients and whānau will share their lived experiences directly with political representatives and talk about the changes they believe are needed to reduce avoidable harm and build a safer health system.
What is the connection to corruption? Healthcare cannot be clinically safe if it is compromised by corruption, secrecy, or lax accountability. Some recent cases and failure of integrity systems demonstrate that ethical breaches can direct public money away from health priorities into the hands of corrupt people, as well as endangering lives.
Research has estimated that around $455 billion or 6.19% of health expenditure, is lost to global health fraud and corruption every year. (Gee, J. & Button, M. (2015), The Financial Cost of Healthcare Fraud 2015: What Data From Around the World Shows).
Cases and costs
A prominent example of this vulnerability was the Auckland District Health Board bribery scandal. A medical supply company director funneled over $170,000 in bribes to a senior manager to unlawfully secure lucrative supply contracts. This was more than a financial crime; it was a severe patient safety violation. When purchasing decisions are dictated by kickbacks rather than clinical merit, health systems risk acquiring substandard equipment and faulty medical devices. Systemic transparency in open contracting ensures that medical tools are vetted purely for safety and efficacy.
Fraud also wastes resources both in the fraud itself and in the investigation and prosecution phases. In June 2026, a Waikato registered midwife was found to have breached professional standards by falsely claiming more than $166,000 in public funding from Health New Zealand. She billed the government for births she did not attend, rural support care she did not deliver, and travel costs she could not justify. It is unlikely that these funds can be returned. The amount she defrauded could pay for around 20-37 births.
Fake licensing
False credentialing by ‘clinicians’ has also caused harm. Most recently a fraudster faked their CV to gain registration and work with the NZ Blood Service. And in 2022 an impostor doctor at Middlemore Hospital used forged documents and a fake Medical Council email to bypass checks and actively treated roughly 80 patients before being discovered. World Patient Safety Day emphasizes that regulatory bodies must maintain flawless vetting transparency; a single failure allows uncertified and incompetent individuals into clinical spaces.
Cybersecurity and Clinical Continuity
The modern threat landscape has also shifted online, turning data security into a direct clinical issue. The Manage My Health data breach exposed the private medical histories and lab results of approximately 120,000 New Zealanders. The Privacy Commissioner criticized Health New Zealand for failing to include dedicated privacy and security specialists on the project oversight team.
In a digital health system, data security is directly tied to patient safety. If cybercriminals lock or compromise digital medical records, clinicians lose immediate access to patient histories, severe drug allergies, and active prescription records.
Weak systems
Other integrity weaknesses in our health system (in financial fraud controls, executive expense governance, procurement practice and IT security) have been highlighted in the past, by the Office of the Auditor-General (2012), the State Services Commission review into Waikato DHB CEO spending in 2018, the Auditor General in 2019 into Waikato DHB $16 million of procurement processes without formal planning, and a 2023 report by the OAG showing deficient IT controls at several DHBs.
Safeguarding our healthcare system requires a shift from passive compliance to active transparency. This means rigorously applying financial controls and procurement audits, ensuring identity verification for all clinical practitioners, and enforcing rigorous cybersecurity standards across all platforms.
