Yesterday, 5,500 senior doctors across Aotearoa New Zealand voted overwhelmingly to strike for a day.
This is the first time in New Zealand ASMS members have taken strike action for 24 hours.
They are asking the government to fund them and account for resource shortfalls.
Vacancies are critical - 45-50% in some regions.
The government had offered doctors a 1 to 1.5% pay increase - i.e an effective pay cut - even as the system loses experienced doctors under the weight of deliberate underfunding.
Health Minister Simeon Brown said it was “deeply disappointing” and gaslit medical professionals in a way that is standard for this National government:
Their members, senior doctors, are walking away from patients and cancelling care. This isn’t how we fix the health system
This is a bizarre statement from a government and Minister that has:
intentionally frozen doctor and healthcare professional hires for over a year leading to significant under-resourcing, healthcare professionals’ burnout and patient delays,
stonewalled doctors & nurses when they sound warnings,
refused critical hires, meaning more Kiwi deaths and patient costs,
uses paper statistics to mask the reality of patients and practitioners at risk,
ignored warnings that hospitals around the country are collapsing,
implemented telehealth on the West Coast despite knowing it put Kiwis’ lives at risk,
firing supposed “back office” to give more admin and cleaning duties to doctors and nurses,
and is using expensive privatisation & outsourcing to game wait lists and Americanise our system.
Nelson Hospital senior doctors said the government’s Health games have already cost lives and exacerbated life threatening conditions1.
They say the issues are not new, but the last year is the worst it’s ever been. And the government is aware.
Senior doctors in Gisborne Hospital wrote to Shane Reti last year, and again to the PM, to tell them the hospital is “on the brink of collapse”.
Experienced, already rare, senior doctors feel they have no choice to leave as it gets worse.
Last year, PM Luxon and his Cabinet Ministers received a 10.5% pay increase over 3 years, taking Luxon’s base salary to $520,000, and a Cabinet Minister like Simeon Brown being bumped from $296,000 to $327,100 per annum.
Where Jacinda Ardern refused the bump for her and her Ministers, National, ACT and NZ First held no such qualms.
National has already underfunded Health in NZ to the lowest per capita level in a century - it’s an effective cut to health funding, just as the government is doing to doctors.
The “record Health investment” Luxon boasted about was over 6 years - not 3.
86% of health workers think the government’s cuts will make it harder for Kiwis to get access to healthcare.
81% say cuts are damaging our health service.
Yesterday Simeon Brown said doctors are already “well supported”, blaming them, and claiming they already earn an average of $343,000 a year.
That is a categorical lie.
As a good doctor noted:
The highest pay for a full-time hospital specialist is $268K, far less than they can earn in private, about half of what they could earn in Australia.
If Simeon does not have the ability to read the ASMS MECA maybe he should not be in his current role.
The cost to undo the intentional damage will be exorbitant.
You can’t dismantle years of investment in IT, infrastructure, staffing, and expect it to be easy to fix.
The most ironic part is the health system was weak, but standing strong, and National have come in and chopped it down intentionally at the knees to push it to John Key and Lester Levy’s vision of privatisation.
Yes - the National government is building up intentional bottlenecks and gaps in public health so it can accelerate health privatisation ala America - a step that inevitably costs more and leads to worse patient outcomes over time.
Simeon calls it “partnering”. Health practitioners and experts call it “privatisation by stealth”.
More cuts are coming in Health, as the Government tries to wrestle headlines from the strike with an announcement today of a Health Infrastructure Plan, saying $20bn is needed.
Remember: Simeon is the Minister who unveiled a $70bn road plan without batting an eyelid, and approved a $4-6bn Wellington tunnel that will accelerate a drive to the airport without a proper business case.
Money was never the problem - their priorities are.
In typical fashion, the “free speech absolutists” of the National Party and ACT want doctors to shut up.
Simeon Brown wants doctors effectively muzzled on public health matters - unsurprising given everything this government are doing. Wouldn’t want the truth to come out. Looking bad is a big no-no under National and ACT.
Not to be out-done, David Seymour called health practitioners “whining busy-bodies” and “muppets”.
Coming from Seymour, that’s pretty rich, what has he done to deserve 1 cent of his $370,0002 salary besides waste hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer funds on hobby causes like French speaking charter schools, contriving problems for corporations, and starving hungry kids?
Playing games with Kiwis’ health and cherished public health system for profit is unacceptable.
That’s all it is to Seymour, Simeon Brown, Christopher Luxon and the National Party: a PR game.
But not to us, Prime Minister and Ministers.
It’s time to go, National, because selling Kiwi lives for profit and trying to silence the most valuable members of our society is a firm no-go.
Nelson patient Daniel Walker almost died thanks to this government’s deliberate refusal to fund critical hires.
Seymour is currently a Cabinet Minister and received. 10.5% pay increase over 3 years, as Deputy PM from next month he will earn $369,700.
How such a low quality person as Simeon Brown has managed to reach the position of being Health Minister is a depressing demonstration of the depths we have reached in our political life. The blatant preparation of our health system for privatisation is not even hiding in plain sight, it's shouting it's head off 'look at me'! Exactly the same playbook is being used in the UK right now.
Last year I had an accident which necessitated an air ambulance pick up and then surgery and a stay in hospital in Otautahi followed by 2 months in a wheelchair. The level of expertise and care was exemplary and I have made a 100% recovery. This cost me 'nothing' (in so far as I am a tax paying citizen). I asked chatgpt to estimate cost in the USA, and at different insurance levels
Plan Type Approx. Cost to You (Excess)
Platinum/Gold $4,000–$6,000 Insurance premium min $500pm
Silver $6,000–$9,000 Insurance premium min $400pm
Bronze $9,000–$9,450 Insurance premium min $300pm
Uninsured $41,000–$147,000+
This is the kind of information that needs to be driven home by the media every time these bastards push for privatisation. All very well for the likes of Johnkey who can easily afford top level insurance for himself and his family but what about the rest of us? Who pays for a kids broken arm when the family can barely afford rent and accommodation let alone insurance? Would we trust the current government to put a proper safety net in place? What sort of society do we want to live in?
It’s perplexing to someone like me who loves the clarity of system dynamics how individuals like Simeon Brown can advocate so ardently for positions that simply don’t hold water. It appears to be some sort of virus too because the entire cabinet is infected with the same level of myopic, ideological, stupidity. It needs to stop because rather than advancing New Zealand’s interests it dramatically retards and restricts them. Instead of championing its citizens, it rails against them. Instead of empathy there is apathy. Instead of hope, despair. Instead of truth, lies. In place of leadership, feckless incompetence. Intellectual curiosity and a thirst for knowledge has been replaced by dull-witted, ignorance. Transparency has traded places with corruption. And here we are.