Who is Lester Levy, the man replacing Health NZ board?

Wednesday, 24 July 2024

After a year of “constant health problems” in his family, Lester Levy is making one big promise to fix the health system; reduce waiting times without spending any more money.

Levy is a qualified medical doctor, originally from South Africa, who has worked in academia, governance and medicine serving on 26 boards of directors, 16 as chairperson and three as deputy chairperson.

He has now been appointed by Health Minister Dr Shane Reti as commissioner of Health NZ Te Whatu Ora replacing the board “in response to serious concerns around oversight, overspend and a significant deterioration in financial outlook”.

Levy has been asked to cut down on what Reti described as $130 million overspend every month, reduce staffing layers from 14 to about six, and axe between 2500 and 3000 “back office” staff from August 1.

In a press conference on Tuesday, Levy said he wanted to “just get everything going” and move from “a bloated bureaucratic organisation to a health delivery organisation”.

“Get the waiting times down, be more productive, give more services into the hands of patients, their families, and communities and make everything we do infused with a milk of human kindness, compassion, consideration, and empathy and never forget that we are dealing with people when they vulnerable.”

He said he knew what it was like to be vulnerable.

“I've had a year of just constant problems, health problems with my family. And I just know how complex it is and how vulnerable even if you know how the system works.”

He believed it was possible to reduce waiting times if the system changed its focus and operating model to make everything more affordable. He said new ways of working would be trialled for 12 weeks and if they worked would be scaled up.

More detail on cuts would be announced in the next few weeks.

He said some regional devolution would happen with four deputy chief executives having financial accountability and power to make decisions reporting to the chief executive.

He said there was not a shortage of money - it was a matter of getting more value for taxes spent on healthcare.

With an address in Auckland, the 70-year-old is listed as a current or former director or shareholder of 64 companies. According to an interview with the NZ Herald, the father-of-three said he was influenced by his time as a medical student during the Soweto riots of 1976. He moved to New Zealand two years later after being inspired by Sir Edmund Hillary and a Kiwi university room mate.

Levy is the Professor of digital health leadership at the Auckland University of Technology and was appointed by Ministers of Health across the political divide to six ministerial positions including chairperson of three Auckland DHBs and Crown Monitor of Canterbury District Health Board from 2019 to 2022.

He has also been an advisor to the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet and an independent expert advisor to the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Enterprise and the Ministry of Health.

Health researcher Michael Gousmett said during Levy’s tenure as Crown Monitor in Canterbury the DHB’s deficit rose from almost $178m in 2019 to $222m in 2022.

He said Levy contributed to turning the three Auckland DHB’s deficits around but they were all back in deficit a year after his 2018 resignation.

“The simple answer is underfunding. Lester Levy can say there is more money going in now than ever before but the trouble is they are still not putting enough in,” he said.

“I don’t see how it’s going to work,” Gousmett said.

Christchurch surgeon Frank Frizelle said Levy was a very bright business person.

“He’s a very able person. He seems to be a person who’s involved in big decisions but usually behind the scenes,” he said.

“[Levy’s] experience shows he can deliver and I think he’s a fix-it person brought in and he’s capable. He’s saying all the right words. Can he do it? I don’t know…The buck stops with him.”

However, Christchurch surgeon Phil Bagshaw, founder of the Canterbury Charity Hospital, said Levy’s promises were “neo-liberal fantasy”.

“The health system has been seriously underfunded for decades. Anybody who thinks they can come in an make sweeping changes to the system should talk to the doctors and nurses who are working themselves to exhaustion to keep a failing system going,” he said.

Executive Director of the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists Sarah Dalton said she had seen no data to back up Levy’s assertions about staffing levels and was sceptical about whether he could make changes to patient outcomes without spending more money.

“Our members, senior doctors and dentists, are working under significant staffing shortages…If he can turn it around on the same budget that’s great but New Zealand’s health care spend doesn’t stack up compared to other developed countries,” she said.

“Talk is cheap,” she said.