Interventional cardiology in New Zealand

Death rates from coronary heart disease in New Zealand are among the highest in the world although they have steadily fallen since a peak in 1968. The health care system is largely publicly funded with most cardiologists being salaried, although there has been a growth in fee-for-service private practice. Waiting times in public hospitals for bypass surgery can be years for chronic stable angina. The publicly funded health care system is being reformed. In 1993 there were in New Zealand, for a population of just less than 3.5 million: 6,227 coronary angiograms; 1,365 percutaneous interventions; and 1,513 coronary artery bypass only operations. The percutaneous intervention rate was 391 per million. There has been an increase in new device use so that in Auckland 11% of percutaneous interventions involved new devices.