Disinvesting in New Zealand healthcare

For years, just as Britons have watched their National Health System decline, I have watched the New Zealand health system slowly buckling. In both the U.K. and New Zealand there seem to similar causes. But the primary cause in New Zealand: decades of under investment by both National and Labour Governments.

Over a period of two years, Health New Zealand only hired 54 new nurses. This was during a period when there were hundreds of nursing positions vacant nationwide. It happened despite hundreds of qualified nurses applying for these positions. They all must have reasonably thought that they had a good chance of being hired.

It was not to be.

In conjunction with Ministry of Health, and enabled by Minister of Health Simeon Brown, there was a crack down.

The results speak for themselves. Reports of patients being left for hours in soiled bedding because nurses are too busy doing other things. Patients waiting for hours for treatment and at least one dying waiting. Corridors being filled with patients because the rooms are full.

Minister Simeon Brown has no work experience whatsoever of the health system. This is a major allegation to make but I think it is true: National deliberately put the worst qualified M.P. they could find into one of the most important Government ministries there is.

Surprisingly though, Mr Brown is not a Cabinet member of the first Government to systemically underfund health. That goes to Jonathan Coleman and the National-led Government of Prime Minister John Key. Under his reign, no new funding was injected into the system for nine years. No effort was made to reorganize the system either, instead preferring to cut funding in one area and transfer it to another. Instead of doing that, the then Government could have reorganized the District Health Boards.

One estimate from the early 2000s suggested that the D.H.B. system could cost $750 million per annum. That much could fund hundreds of nurses, doctors and specialists as well as pay for a lot of operations. It was not until the Six Labour Government of Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern that this was revisited.

There are a mixture of 1-off priorities and long-term funding commitments that I think New Zealand needs to make on the health system:

Perhaps first and foremost is to stop tinkering with the administration each time the Government changes. Both National and Labour Government are guilty of this. The Opportunity Party refers to such behaviour as pendulum politics.

A second measure should be to require non-New Zealand patients to have insurance, and evidence of ability to pay. Other countries such as Japan are cracking down on patients who receive treatment. They then leave the hospital (and the country) without paying.

Realistically though, what the health system really needs is a baseline funding increase that is adjusted for inflation per annum. The baseline funding covers the basic operations, resourcing and day to day necessities.

Will National and Labour be brave enough to stop the pendulum politics?