If the health system was our patient, we'd be rushing it to the operating theatre.

That's how the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists is describing the state of New Zealand's health sector.

Executive director Ian Powell said the lack of funding and lack of a listening ear is abominable, and is warning that we're dangerously close to hearing about an operation gone wrong.

He said public hospitals are at a high, unacceptable risk of threatening patient safety, as half of specialists and doctors are suffering burnout.

"If you were to go into an operation now, there's a 50% chance that the surgeon who is operating on you is going to be burnt out, there is a 50% chance that the anaesthetist is burnt out."

Powell said since 2010, about $1.5 billion in funding has been drained from public hospitals - and that's meant a huge increase in specialists' workloads.

He said there's also a 50 percent chance the pathologist or the radiologist who did the diagnosis for the surgeon is burnt out.