‘Part-time’ health commissioner holding down two jobs

Wednesday, 18 September 2024

The man tasked with clawing back a billion dollar-plus deficit in the public health system is still working the equivalent of two days a week at his second job ‒ a move one senior clinician has labelled “professionally insulting”.

The Post can also reveal Professor Lester Levy is charging $320,000 a year to be Health NZ commissioner, which the Ministry of Health says “reflects the demand of the role”.

Levy was appointed to the role eight weeks ago after Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announced the country’s biggest employer was headed for a $1.4 billion deficit by the end of June 2025.

Despite this, Levy is continuing to teach two days a week at Auckland University of Technology (AUT), where he is a public health professor.

The classes – four each year – are 150 hours each and all centred on health technology and digital innovation, with one also covering “leadership mindset and self-reflection” in a digital health context.

“Outside the semester periods, Professor Levy provides leadership in undergraduate and postgraduate health management development for AUT students and undertakes health leadership research activities,” an AUT spokesperson said.

It comes as Levy prepares to receive his first public grilling from politicians of all stripes today, when he appears before Health Select Committee on Wednesday.

Health Minister Shane Reti’s office said he was “confident Professor Levy has the time and resources to fulfil his responsibilities as commissioner”, despite his teaching commitments.

But senior Health NZ clinicians, who spoke out anonymously, said this left them with little confidence in Levy.

One described the dual roles as “professionally insulting”. Another doctor pointed out Levy was earning about $40,000 more than the most experienced specialists on collective agreements “for a part-time job”.

They said the fee was ironic considering Levy and the Government repeatedly claimed the “back office” spend had been blown out.

“Our health system deserves a full time boss,” said another clinician.

There is very little public insight on how Levy is spending his time as commissioner, given he has only held one media conference and declined repeated interview requests with The Post – despite weeks of outstanding requests.

The Post asked when Levy would be available to discuss how often he is meeting with Government ministers, who he is meeting with, whether he intends to publicly release minutes of his meetings with ministers and whether he remains confident the $1.4b in savings can be made and where.

The Health NZ media team said Levy would do an interview in October, but did not respond to questions on when this might happen.

Reti’s office deflected a question on how many times the minister had met with Levy in August, saying Reti’s diary would be published in due course. Reti told The Post in early August the pair were meeting formally every two to three days.

Diary entries from July say Reti met with Levy twice that month ‒ once on July 31 for 30 minutes and once on July 1 for an hour, when Levy was the chairperson of Health NZ’s board.

Requests for copies of the commissioner’s diary were deflected by Health NZ’s media team, which said it would need to be considered as an Official Information Act request.

Labour’s health spokesperson Dr Ayesha Verrall questioned how Levy could do two jobs, saying “without a board there is more work for each individual”.

She was looking forward to questioning Levy at the select committee, in a session titled “briefing on financial scrutiny”.