Simeon Brown: Health Minister on the new health infrastructure plan

The Health Minister says their new $20 million health infrastructure plan is an answer to decades of under investment. 

The list includes new projects and general maintenance, but has no timeline. 

Simeon Brown told Mike Hosking the government will take time to engage with the private sector and see what they may be able to invest. 

He says the plan won't be delivered overnight but gives a clear indication of what needs to be done. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Morning, seven past seven. So for the first time a
health minister's put a price on renewing the sector's facilities,
twenty billion dollars as your bill. It's all part of
the government's new health infrastructure plan. Covers nearly thirteen hundred
buildings across eighty six campuses, the average age of facilities
forty seven years. Health ministers in me and Brown with us,
good morning, Good morning Mike. When you start wading through
buildings and campuses and bills the size of this, do

(00:21):
you get a sense of the size of the ship
and how hard it is to turn around?

Speaker 2 (00:26):
Yeah? Look, absolutely, you see that there's been decades of
under investment in our health infrastructure. When you walk around
our hospitals, particularly in our regional hospitals, you see that
there's a real need to invest. And so what we've
done is we've put together a long term plan. This
is not going to be delivered overnight, but it gives
a clear indication of what needs to be done, what

(00:46):
services are needed in which regions, and then it allows
us also to look at from the government's perspective, look
at what investments needed over that time frame, and also
engage with the private sector. Around what capacity they have
to deliver and what capacity they have to invest in
our our health infrastructure as well.

Speaker 1 (01:01):
Work us through the logistics of that. I'm an equity
fund you come to me for some money, I say,
I've got it. What do I get for investing in
the health sector.

Speaker 2 (01:10):
Well, if there's a range of different funding and financing models,
and we've set up the National Infrastructure Funding and Financing Company,
their job is to work with these investors. Obviously there's
things like public private partnerships where maybe there could be
long term lease arrangements, there could be concessions, there could
be a whole range of different funding and financing options
on the table. The opportunity there is for these organizations,

(01:33):
these equity firms or whether it's super funds to come
and talk to the National Infrastructure Funding and Financing Company.
They'll engage with Health New Zealand and talk through what
those proposals might look like and then potentially put those
deals together. So we're looking at that across government. Infrastructure
ultimately is about making sure that the services which are

(01:54):
delivered are publicly funded. There's no change, but it's about
making sure that the infrastructure is able to deliver through
different ways of funding and financing it.

Speaker 1 (02:01):
There's no shortage of money in the world, as the
Prime Minister's told as many times. So I'm assuming there's
a capacity constraint, because why don't we do it all
at once in your aunt's ryme assuming is we don't
have the people and we don't have the wherewithal to
get on with it even if we could get the money.

Speaker 2 (02:13):
Well, there's the needing. The funding is one part of it.
There's also the capacity of the market, and that's why
this plan looks at how we can stage developments. If
you look at a lot of our regional hospitals, it's
about the capacity of the construction sector in those cities
and towns as well, and so you've actually got to
look at how do you stage those developments over time

(02:34):
so that you're able to deliver them in a timely,
end cost effective manner, rather than doing substantive builds, which
ultimately the construction sector can't necessarily respond to. So that's
why it's it's a long term plan. It identifies the needs,
It looks at what's you know, the under investment, what's
required to catch up, but also looks at the new
models of care and pushing services away from core hospitals

(02:56):
into the community so that the services can be delivered
a more cost effective manner to home for patients.

Speaker 1 (03:01):
The heat you got yesterday from email Hollands and new
unions and stuff. Are they deliberate? I mean, are they
out to get you in that sense? Is there any
good will and health no matter what you try or not? Well?

Speaker 2 (03:12):
Look, I think the unions are certainly putting politics ahead
of patients, particularly with the strike that they're proposing on
the first of May. I find that frankly unacceptable. We
have patients waiting too long already for care, and by
going on strike they are only going to delay the
care of patients further. So people who are supporting strikes

(03:33):
and also complaining about waitlists have frankly got their politics
in there and their priority is completely wrong. You can't
do both. So I'm calling on the doctor's union to
cancel the strike, get back to the negotiating table and
actually focus on putting patients first and deal with those
issues around the negotiating table and not using patients as
bargaining chips. I find that frankly unacceptable and the worst

(03:56):
type of politics.

Speaker 1 (03:57):
Good to talk to you and have a good weekend.
Some me and Brown Health Minister of course living past soon.

Speaker 2 (04:01):
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