Senior doctors, nurses push back on plans to save $1.4 billion in ‘overburdened’ health system

Monday, 22 July 2024

The Nurses Organisation has accused Health Minister Shane Reti of having an “unreal” view of the health system while the union representing senior doctors says morale has never been so low as the Government looks to wipe $1.4 billion from the strained hospital system.

Reti on Monday sacked the Health New Zealand board with a single commissioner, tasked with finding $1.4 billion in savings, reducing staffing layers from 14 to about six, and reducing middle management by between 2500 and 3000 from August 1.

It comes just two years after the Labour government founded Health New Zealand, which replaced district health boards, and cleared $550 million-worth of debt.

Reti blamed mismanagement, related to the reforms, and the use of “outsourced personnel” to the overspending which he said he became aware of in March.

“No one has been adequately watching and no one has been adequately monitoring the government's single biggest crown entity.”

But unions, and the Labour party, reject his assessment which comes as many of the country’s hospital wards are inadequately staffed, and where thousands of nursing roles - including about 500 in just mental health alone - are empty. Other clinical roles have been chronically short-staffed for years, including psychiatry and psychology.

“It certainly wont fill nurses with any hope at all in the hospital sector, we know that they have been working under significant budgetary constraints and this is going to be the hard face of it,” Nurses Organisation chief executive Paul Goulter said.

“Our position would be that so-called over spend is in fact necessary investment into what any New Zealander would say is a health system that is really under the pump and not serving us.”

He also said Reti had an “unreal” view of the health system because of his push to get rid of non-clinical roles.

“That back office, front office split that is being talked about, we find that there is an unreal perception about how health operates. The frontline needs the services from what they call the back line, it is all one joined process,” he added.

Sarah Dalton, chief executive of the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists, said she has never seen morale so low, adding staff are also angry over what appeared to be a hiring freeze. Reti has rejected this is the case.

“They can call it whatever the like, we have plenty of evidence of clinical and plenty of other important support roles not being filled,” she said.

She described the move to find $1.4 billion in savings as “bleak”.

“If you are looking at best spend for you health dollar you need to invest in the people that make our system tick and we don’t have enough of those

“There is very simple data that shows acute demand is increasing at a higher rate than population growth.”