Public sector pay restraint is strangling our health system

Sarah Dalton is executive director of the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists.

OPINION: When politicians and the Public Service Commission talk about cutting fat out of our public service, and about bridging the gaps between those who earn most and who earn least, who do they see in their mind’s eye?

Does anyone ever picture a busy hospital ward, or an overflowing emergency department? Do they reflect on their last visit to any hospital in New Zealand? I don’t think they do.

Which is a pity, because every public hospital nurse and doctor in NZ has paid a grim price for this particular brand of government austerity – public sector pay restraint. Like their teacher colleagues, our front-line health care workers have been swept up by this catch-all cost-saver – designed to save the Government a few dollars at the expense of our essential health and education workforces whose work we value so much.

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Public Service Minister Andrew Little has commented that pay restraint has been “effective” in achieving what it was supposed to do – pulling up wages of low earners and closing pay gaps.

But at what cost? Do we lift those who earn least by standing on the necks of doctors and nurses, along with lab scientists, psychologists and midwives?

Te Whatu Ora, along with other public sector employers, has backed away from a union proposal to address cost of living pressures, instead looking to revised pay restraint guidelines and shirking its obligations to staff it says it values.

This is simply not good enough. At the same time as our frontline health workers face real wage cuts, we are trying to entice overseas-trained workers here to fill the ever-increasing staffing gaps that plague our hospitals.

Having a baby? Good luck finding a midwife. New hip? Too bad. Complications requiring specialist intervention? Uh oh.

Recent cancer diagnosis? That’s terrible news – you might not get treatment within clinically advisable time-frames.

Unbelievably, we find that half a million dollars have been spent on a campaign to attract overseas-trained health workers to “make a difference somewhere different” – when the message they’ll get from our current workforce is: we are beyond busy; we are so worried about standards of care we don’t want to come to work any more; and by the way, we’ve all had real pay cuts since Covid hit.

We are a country that relies heavily on an overseas-trained health workforce to staff our hospitals. Around 43% of our senior doctors trained somewhere else in the world. This means we are heavily reliant on an international medical job market, and it also means that we need to offer competitive terms and conditions.

Across the ditch, every state is marketing aggressively for doctors and nurses. Australia has health shortages too. Over there, senior doctors’ salaries begin where NZ salaries stop. First-year specialists in Australia earn more than those with 15 years of specialist practice here in Aotearoa. There is no reason to inflict further real pay cuts on those who are still here.

Next week sees our teachers take strike action. They will walk out of classrooms around the country as a direct result of public sector pay restraint, and we will stand in solidarity with our teaching colleagues – because investing in our essential workforces is… well, essential!

Nurses and doctors may be next.

What do you think? Email sundayletters@stuff.co.nz