Health funding changes more a 'sticking plaster' than a real cure - doctors

Some doctors say the government's re-allocation of $30 million towards more senior doctors and nurses is welcome, but falls short of the systemic change that is needed in the health system.

Health minister Shane Reti announced on Tuesday that the money will go towards 50 new senior doctors and up to 75 specialist nurses in a bid to fill urgent workforce gaps in rural, mental health, maternity and critical care.

A separate $12 million fund will also be set up to pay for minor repairs at hospitals, replacement appliances, and new books and toys for children undergoing treatment.

Hospitals can start applying for the roles as of Wednesday, with decisions to be made by Health New Zealand commissioner Lester Levy.

Dr David Galler, who was an intensive care specialist at Middlemore Hospital for more than 30 years, said while it was a "welcome resource" it acted more like a "sticking plaster".

"I don't think that this is going to fundamentally change anything, and won't take the pressure off the system, in the way that a more carefully thought out strategic term plan [can]" he said.

Dr Galler said New Zealand needed a long term investment approach.

"I think we need to cast ourselves into the future, and think very much about what we want from a publicly funded health system, to meet the demands we know are coming, and we need to actually then plan how best we might be able to fund and deliver on what is necessary for that to be realised," he said.

He said officials needed to take into account in their planning, the country's growing and ageing population, as well as the needs for rural healthcare.

Northland doctor Gary Payinda, speaking in a personal capacity, said while any attempts to fill shortages should be appreciated, he felt the contribution was a "drop in the bucket" compared to what is needed to provide safe and adequate healthcare.

"It corrects about 3 percent of the doctors shortage, and probably around 3-4 percent of the nursing shortage," he said, citing the Health New Zealand's 2023 workforce plan which estimated that the country was short of 1700 doctors.

Dr Payinda said he estimated the public hospitals across the country would each be getting about half to one doctor per facility.

"I can't help but think it sounds a little bit like the Hunger Games, where desperate regions and desperate hospitals are being pitted against each other, for what is essentially a 3 percent correction of the shortage, so these are folks fighting for crumbs, and it's sad," he said.

"I think if you look at those tiny tiny numbers, you realise that we need fundamental change, and essentially this announcement doesn't deliver that," he added.

Dr Payinda said he felt the government had not been open and transparent about health workforce shortages in their announcement yesterday.

"What we need to have is an open and honest discussion, that there's the 97 percent that we need to fix, there's a huge problem, and instead we hear from the leaders of healthcare, that, I can only describe it as gaslighting, where they at times have said we're over-recruited and over-budgeted for nurses, never telling you that the budget was woefully unrealistic," he said.

There was a disconnect from the day to day realities frontline clinicians were seeing, and what was being described by the highest level of health leadership, said Dr Payinda.

Meanwhile, Te Whatu Ora accepted more than 400 voluntary redundancies in October, as part of efforts to cut costs to ease a huge deficit. On Monday, staff in its IT department were told of a new proposal to disestablish more roles at the agency.

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