Rob Campbell: Former Health New Zealand Chair on new health infrastructure plan

A former New Zealand health boss says the Government's new list of health infrastructure priorities adds nothing new.

The plan to pump $20 million into infrastructure includes general maintenance and specific projects across the country. 

Former Health New Zealand Chair Rob Campbell says there's no meaningful detail in the plan.

He says the Ministry of Health is good at producing lists, but not so good at producing outcomes.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
So we've got a long term plan for building more
hospital beds, twenty billion dollars worth of upgrades over an
unspecified period of time and no funding confirmed yet. But
there's a plane at least. Then there's the issue of
who's going to work in them. The minister and senior
doctors still fighting. Here's Samin Brown.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
You can't complain about waiting lists whilst you're going to
make waiting lists longer. At the same time, these are
some of the most well paid public servants and what
they should be doing is going back to the negotiating table.

Speaker 1 (00:28):
And here is a doctor from northvid on urn zed
last night.

Speaker 3 (00:31):
He's attacking medical specialists as highly paid public servants. I
had an unsuccessful resuscitation on a trauma patient last night.
You know what has he done in the past twenty
four hours?

Speaker 1 (00:43):
Rob Campbell form its yeer health endzed with us. Hey, Rob,
good morning, Yeah, good thank you. Two quick things on
the strikes before we get to the hospital beds. You've
been privy to these before. How do they end this quickly?

Speaker 4 (00:58):
Well, if you've got one that is completely intransigent and
holds a lot of power to say no, and you've
got others who are trying to look after a profession.
I think it's pretty inevitable. Really, there has to be
a compromise here. I think there hopefully will be. But
these doctors don't work walkout unstruct very easily, so you

(01:22):
have to take it much more seriously than the minister
seems to me to be thin. Of course, these are
relatively high public, highly paid public servants. Wouldn't you expect
our salaried medicals, businesst to be that?

Speaker 1 (01:32):
Well, yeah, you would. Actually, the Minister says there are
more of them now than when National took office, more
senior doctors and a lower tune. So how do I like?
These two things don't make sense. You've got the minister
saying there's more of you, but then you've got the
doctors saying it's worse.

Speaker 4 (01:47):
What gives Well, I'd be inclined to believe the doctors myself.
I mean the question of churn as a statistical measure.
He's only been in power for a relatively short period
of time. I would think that whatever Gisha lying on
is pretty meaningless.

Speaker 1 (02:01):
Frankly, now, the build, the twenty billion dollars and the
pipeline of work sound good.

Speaker 4 (02:09):
Well, there's no news in it. I mean, it seems
to me that Simeon's a bit like Captain Cook on
his own little voyage of discovery, announcing he's discovered things
that everyone else who lived in all along. And that's
exactly what's happened here. There's no new news in this.
That list has been known for a very long time.
The issue is that successive governments haven't done much about it.
So what we have there's a list, there's no times

(02:31):
on it, there's no proper costing on it, there's no
evidence of why certain things have been prioritized. Are there others?
So yes, it's a list, It's a piece of paper.
Health Health New Zealand and the Ministry of Health have
been good at producing lists of paper over the years.
What they're not quite so good at is producing outcomes.
And there's just no example of it as far as
I can see.

Speaker 1 (02:51):
Are we yeah at fair point because as you say,
there's no specified period, there's no funding confirmed, but they
are going to go to the private sected get some money.
Will that speed things up?

Speaker 4 (03:03):
Well? It may or may not. I mean, if you
take a guarantee return to the private sector, no doubt
The private sector will pop up for it. But the
issue is designing, prioritizing, and managing these processes. There's always
money for these things from the private sector. If you
pay them enough, you know that they will pop up.
Are they the right things to do? Is it the

(03:24):
most efficient way? Isn't They've got no idea, they're just
kissing it.

Speaker 1 (03:27):
But Rob, isn't it better that we had something pop
up rather than nothing?

Speaker 2 (03:32):
Oh?

Speaker 4 (03:32):
Yes, we looked. There's no question we need hospital builds.
There is at least twenty billion dollars worth of work
that needs to be done, and getting on with it
is really their priority and everyone I think in the
sector will be fully supportive of that. And indeed, the
under the right basis, it's inevitable there will be private
involvement in that. After all, there there's no one in

(03:53):
the state sector who's available to build these things, so
of course the private sector will be involved. There's no
point in making sort of new virtues out of things
that are just necessities. But yes, get on and do it,
as what I would.

Speaker 1 (04:04):
Say here, Rob, Good to have you on the program.
As always. Rob Campbell former share at health end.

Speaker 4 (04:08):
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