NZ Man Gets Surgery After Year-Long Paperwork Mix-Up

Michael Conway spent over a year living with a painful injury that affected every aspect of his life, from his marriage to his confidence at work. The 39-year-old Lower Hutt man needed surgery to repair damage caused by a medical catheter, but paperwork errors kept pushing his operation further away.

Conway, who has spina bifida, developed a serious tear in late 2023 that later became infected and sent him to the hospital with sepsis. Doctors scheduled surgery for June 2024, but critical ACC forms were repeatedly sent to the wrong clinician, creating months of delays.

The injury caused ongoing complications that left Conway feeling self-conscious in public and at work. "There are times when I feel so self-conscious that I avoid at all costs getting anywhere near my workmates," he told Stuff NZ.

His wife Nicki watched her husband struggle through what should have been their joyful first year of marriage. She described the emotional toll of seeing someone you love deal with both physical pain and damaged confidence every single day.

In November 2025, Health New Zealand acknowledged the errors in a formal letter to Conway. The agency found that documentation issues contributed to roughly three months of delays in his surgical timeline.

Health New Zealand apologized for the distress caused and said they're strengthening processes to prevent similar delays. Jamie Duncan, group director of operations, noted that urgent and life-threatening cases must be prioritized in urology services facing significant pressure.

Why This Inspires

Conway finally received his surgery date during an interview about his ordeal. Rather than focusing on bitterness about the lost time, he chose to reframe his experience with remarkable grace.

"When I see it now, it reminds me of what could have broken me, but didn't," Conway said. His words capture something powerful about human resilience: how we can transform our hardest moments into evidence of our own strength.

The surgery is scheduled for this month, giving Conway and Nicki the chance to finally move forward with their lives together.