Frontline health services being compromised as government cuts costs - doctors

Eighty percent of trainee doctors have reported resources being cut in their services, the Speciality Trainees of New Zealand (STONZ) says.

It added that frontline health services have been compromised by cost cutting, with staff shortages, delayed patient care and burnout.

More than half of all STONZ members reported their clinical time had been reduced due to increased paperwork because of cuts to administration support.

They also reported senior doctor and nurse shortages, and had concerns around compromised care and overwhelmed staff.

STONZ senior executive Emma Littlehales told Checkpoint there had also been delays in being paid for working additional shifts.

"Our members are giving up time with their families, their evenings, and weekends to work extra shifts, to fill holes and rosters and make sure patients are cared for. And they're just not getting reimbursed for them in a timely manner," she said.

Littlehales added 75 percent said the cuts were impacting their ability to provide good patient care.

"People go into medicine to help patients and they are saying that they're feeling undervalued and that it's affecting their own health and wellbeing.

"So we are hearing from doctors that not only are they, is it affecting patients, but that it's affecting their own wellbeing and they're feeling that they can't offer the care that they would like to for patients."