Capital and Coast District Health Board has apologised to an obese man who was told he could not have a stomach bypass because he was a man.
Ron Blair, who weighs 132kg, received a letter last month informing him he did not qualify for the surgery because he was "a male".
However, the DHB has since written to Mr Blair to apologise, saying the initial letter was inadequate, The Dominion Post reported.
"It is not our intention to cause undue distress and it is not the way in which we would expect you to receive this type of information," Wellington Hospital's surgical services operations manager Adrianne Belchamber wrote.
While the operation was technically more difficult to perform on men than on women, Mr Blair was excluded from the surgery because he had a premorbid cardi-respiratory illness.
"Your medical history clearly includes evidence of cardiac, respiratory and peripheral vascular disease, the combination of which immediately excludes you from further consideration."
