As hospitals and GPs around the country say they are cracking under the pressure, the Health Minister denies the sector is at crisis point.
Primary carers and hospitals nationwide say chronic staff shortages mean they're overloaded, fatigued and struggling to cope.
And it's a vicious circle - with GP practices swamped, more and more people are turning up to emergency departments.
There is already an urgent investigation into the death of a woman who left Middlemore ED due to long wait times, and now hundreds of non-urgent surgeries have been pushed back in Wellington.
Here's our political editor, Jane Patterson.
