After initially being told he would soon receive a colonoscopy, Steve and his wife, Lynette McKinnon – who live together in Havelock North – spent months chasing the hospital for updates, only to be repeatedly told he remained on the waiting list.

Lynette said it took about 14 months, two urgent GP referrals and desperate phone calls before Steve finally underwent the procedure and received a devastating diagnosis: stage 3 bowel cancer.

“They said, we had ‘slipped through the system somehow’, and we were ‘not prioritised right’,” Lynette told Hawke’s Bay Today.

“They did confirm that it should have been done within 45 days instead of [more than] 365 days.”

By the time of his diagnosis in March 2025, Steve’s health had deteriorated significantly.

The delay forced the McKinnons to shut Beresford Auto Sales, the car business they had run for seven years.

“We could have carried on with the business if I had been diagnosed earlier,” Steve said.

“But when we found it, the damage was already huge.”

Lynette said there was no way she could run the business on her own and Steve “just physically could not go to work” because of the cancer’s effect on him.

Now, financially relying only on Steve’s pension, the couple have had to seek support from Work and Income.

Steve said he’d felt like he’d witnessed contrasting health system care that suggested it was deteriorating.

Once a “good customer” of the public hospitals – having undergone back surgery, a hip replacement and eye surgery in the past – Steve says the care he received this time was different.

“The system is broken,” he said.

“The right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing.”

Steve describes being sent for multiple blood tests in a single day, with little co-ordination between services.

“It’s a continual waste of people’s time,” he says.

He also noticed that after his latest surgery, he would need to keep remembering to ask for painkillers.

“Whether they’re trying to save money … I don’t know, but I just noticed that difference in such a short time.”

David Warrington, Health NZ’s group director of operations in Hawke’s Bay, said Steve was prioritised as semi-urgent, which meant his procedure should have been managed within 42 days.

“We acknowledge that the colonoscopy delay has likely meant that Mr McKinnon’s cancer was not detected as early as it could have been,” Warrington says.

“We are undertaking a review that will look at systems and processes with a focus on learning and will include any recommendations for improvement. This will be shared with Mr McKinnon.”

Warrington told Hawke’s Bay Today the health system is under pressure, with a shortage of gastroenterology specialists nationwide.

“We are working hard to meet this need by recruiting more.

“Budget 2024 saw the health system receive a significant funding boost to support frontline health services. This financial year we’ll receive around $28 billion in government funding to enable our work in delivering better health outcomes for all New Zealanders.”

Steve, who can no longer sleep without pills, now starts his mornings with about eight different medicines – a daily reminder of the battle he’s fighting both physically and emotionally.

“The stress is not helping Steve. It’s making him sicker,” Lynette says.

Her own battle with cancer, just six months before Steve’s diagnosis, had added another layer of strain.

She said they barely had time to breathe after she completed treatment for breast cancer in November 2023.

Emotionally and financially struggling, the pair say they want to speak out – not only for themselves, but also for others who may not have the support or perseverance to fight the system.

“I’m not the only one,” Steve says.

“I just hope that somebody of some note can actually get the message that things aren’t right out there … and do something about it.”

Now, with his treatment schedule to start in about two weeks, Steve, who was once a golfer and a passionate traveller, said he would love to be able to play a round or take a trip with Lynette again.

But more than anything, his greatest wish is simple.

“I just hope I can get over this and live a little bit longer.”