Deborah Powell: Resident Doctors' Association National Security on Health NZ's overspending

Some health workers say they want the priority to be the workforce rather than the budget. 

The Health New Zealand board has been sacked and replaced with a commissioner - Lester Levy. 

Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says the agency is overspending by $130 million a month. 

Resident Doctors' Association National Secretary Deborah Powell told Ryan Bridge it is underfunded. 

She says the money they get is always in catch-up mode, and they need to get into an investment phase. 

LISTEN ABOVE 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Bryan Bridge.

Speaker 2 (00:01):
Health New Zealand's border is being replaced by a new commissioner,
Professor Lester Levy, who was recently appointed the Chair of
Health New Zealand, will take charge of the organization for
a twelve month term. Health Minister Shane Retti has made
the move following what he called serious concerns around oversight,
overspend and a significant deterioration in the financial outlook. In

(00:21):
other words, financially, it's up the creek. Deborah Powell is
the New Zealand Resident Doctors Association National Secretary and she's
with me now. Deborah. Good morning, Deborah, good to have
you on the show. First of all, your reaction to
what the minister announced yesterday.

Speaker 1 (00:38):
Oh, it's a sad day in health. I have to
say whenever we get a board replaced by the autographic
system that is a commissioner, it's always a bad day.
It's also a bad day because the sole focus is
funding and money and it's important. I'm not saying it's not,

(00:59):
but it shouldn't be the sole focus. We should be
focused on our workforce, which Minister Etti then say would
be the priority, and we should be focusing on investing
in both workforce and our infrastructure to turn us around.
So no, it wasn't a good announcement. I'm a grade
is it?

Speaker 2 (01:16):
Can you not see where he's coming from?

Speaker 1 (01:18):
Though?

Speaker 2 (01:18):
Because if you're putting in, if you're overspending by one
hundred and thirty million dollars per month, you've got it,
apparently an increase in full time equivalent workers, plus you've
got an increase in contractors, but the results are not
going up at the same rate. I mean, something's clearly wrong,
isn't there isn't it?

Speaker 1 (01:34):
Well, our fundamental problem and I do see where he's
coming from. In one hand that let me explain. Our
fundamental problem is that we're underfunded. And it's not so
much mismanagement as underfunding. And quite frankly, I am sick
of successive governments blaming the government before for the underfunding.
We've been underfunded since the last Labor government and the

(01:57):
national government before that, and it's time to turn that around.
The money we get is always in catch up mode
these days. We need to get into an investment phase. Secondly,
and look, I'll use a real live example. We have
MRI scanners. These are part of the radiology group that
diagnose and then monitor treatment of patients their magnetic resonance

(02:19):
imaging scanners for the long term, so we call them mrs.
We have mrs interfatile Aora at this very moment lying
idle because we don't have the workforce to run them.
So of course cancer patients who need diagnosis and monitoring
are getting held up. Our weight lists are going for
surgery inpatients are sitting around because they need an MR

(02:39):
before we can actually release them to go home. So
these things are going on. But sorry, it's a bit long,
but we're spending This government has said thirty million dollars
more to outsource to private in order to get the
staff we need to run the scanners. We already have
one point five million. So yes, it is about the money.
But if you put your focus on workforce first, an

(03:02):
actual fact, you get a better financial outcome. And that's
where they're going wrong.

Speaker 2 (03:07):
Well, well, is that not the point that shaneyit is
making exactly that he is going to be focusing on
the front line to make sure that those services are there.

Speaker 1 (03:17):
Yeah, but I haven't seen any of it. And what
we're all the signals we're getting is thirty million for
outsourcing one point five to support competitive rates of pay
for our own staff. No. Right, that's what we're seeing.

Speaker 2 (03:30):
In a word, Deborah, because we are out of time.
Have the reforms is the creation of health in New Zealand?
Has that made the situation better or worse?

Speaker 1 (03:40):
I think it's made it better. Before we had twenty
district health boards competing and that was wasting money. We
were duplicating services. It has been a difficult transformation, there's
no two ways about it. But it's still early days
in such a big change. It's only two years in
and going back into more restructuring, ref focusing regionally instead

(04:01):
of nationally. Look, it's just going to be more wasted
energy and resources, all right.

Speaker 2 (04:06):
Debraah, thank you very much for your time. Nice to
have you on the show. Doctor Debrah Powell, who's the
New Zealand Resident Doctors Association National Secretary. For more from
News Talk ZEDB, listen live on air or online, and
keep our shows with you wherever you go with our
podcasts on iHeartRadio