From the Beehive: Winter will test Government’s ability to meet health responsibility

With the shortest day just around the corner and icy temperatures setting in across the south, there’s a sense of foreboding that our ailing health system is going to be pushed to its limit this winter.

Coughs, colds, and the flu have already been doing the rounds in schools and workplaces, with predictions of a bumper year for influenza coming to fruition.

While many of us will be able to manage with paracetamol and rest, there are others in the community who may not fare so well.

It is these people who may not get the urgent care they need from a health system in crisis.

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In recent years, people have struggled to get timely access to healthcare, and it is only getting worse.

We have a severe shortage of nurses and midwives that is contributing to ballooning wait lists, delays accessing treatment or maternity care, and overcrowded emergency departments.

The nurses we do have are burned out by the heavy workload and frustrated they can’t offer the time and care to patients that they’d like.

The statistics speak for themselves. We are at least 4000 nurses short in New Zealand. Since August 2022, nearly 5000 Kiwi nurses have registered to work in Australia.

These figures paint a damning picture.

This dire situation was flagged two years ago but changes to immigration settings have been painfully slow allowing other countries to recruit the talent we desperately need.

National is committed to changing this by paying nurses’ and midwives’ student loan repayments so long as they enter a bonding agreement of five years. We also need to make New Zealand an attractive option for overseas workers.

Fixing the economy would also allow for greater investment in frontline staff, to give them the resources they need to deliver better health outcomes for all.

When we look at other factors that have contributed to this crisis, it’s hard to look past the massive restructure that Labour chose to embark on coming out of the pandemic.

In 2021, I aired my misgivings at the Government’s plan to abolish all District Health Boards and replace them with a centralised system, which we now know as Te Whatu Ora.

The timing couldn’t have been worse for such a drastic change.

The restructure, with its extravagant use of consultants, has proved a major distraction and has added to the bloated bureaucracy problem this country already has.

I’d like to see health restructure waste re-directed into building the health workforce we need.

The other major area of concern at this time of crisis is the removal of health targets.

The writing was on the wall when Labour came into office and removed the focus on National’s Better Public Services targets, which included shorter wait times in hospital emergency departments and faster cancer treatment.

Since Labour removed targets, the national average of patients being seen within six hours in emergency departments has dropped from 91 per cent in 2017, to 71 per cent. First specialist appointment and surgical wait lists have also reached record highs

In the recent Budget, more than 60 health performance measures were discontinued including emergency department wait times and some cancer treatment targets.

Labour should be holding itself accountable to these measures – not doing so is a massive misjudgement on their behalf.

National is committed to accountability through publicly reported targets.

I feel for our doctors, nurses, and other health professionals on the front line. They are doing their best in the most challenging circumstances.

Medical staff already light on numbers now face the reality of working through winter with high demand and while having to cover the workload of any colleagues who become sick themselves.

We are fortunate to have wonderful health professionals in this part of the country, but they can only do so much.

June, July, and August will be tough for all. Kids will pick up bugs from their friends and the flu will make its way around offices.

We can take preventative measures and ensure we have supplies ready for when the inevitable happens, but we also need to know that our health system will be there for us should we need it.

The Government and its health minister have a duty to make sure the sick and injured are seen in a timely manner, this winter will test their ability to meet that responsibility.