Photo: RNZ
Plans to cut nearly 1500 jobs at Health NZ - Te Whatu Ora have been met with outrage by health sector leaders.
The Public Service Association says 1120 jobs will go from Te Whatu Ora's data and digital team (47 percent of the work force) and 358 from the National Public Health Service roles (24 percent).
However, Te Whatu Ora disputed the number of roles that would go in the National Public Health Service, saying the proposed net loss was actually 57. The PSA said its figures included about 300 vacant roles that had been budgeted for but were proposed to be cut.
Staff from the National Public Health Service were told of the impending cuts on the same day public health officials announced a whooping cough epidemic.
The PSA said its figures included about 300 roles that had been budgeted for but were vacant because of a recruitment freeze.
The latest figures are on top of more than 500 voluntary redundancies already accepted. RNZ has tallied more than 2000 jobs are now gone or proposed to go at the agency.
Rob Campbell says this week's announcement of some funding for frontline roles can now be viewed as "a figleaf" for other job losses. Photo: LDR / Supplied
Former Te Whatu Ora chairperson Rob Campbell said the proposed cuts were shortsighted.
The health agency was facing billions of dollars in unmet costs, including a significant technology deficit, and while cutting staff now might meet a short-term target, it did nothing to address the huge challenges, he said.
He said an announcement earlier in the week of a re-allocation of $30 million funding to go towards filling frontline roles was "a figleaf" to provide cover for the job losses.
"It was simply a reallocation of some funds... If you can't tell where it came from, how do you know if it's a net benefit or not? You can say, 'here's some money to employ senior doctors', but as the organisation representing senior doctors said, we're short of these people, where do they think they're going to get them?"
Nearly 1500 more roles could go at Health NZ says union
"You certainly wouldn't want a pandemic hitting that health system at the moment would you?" Campbell told Morning Report.
"We are short of workers in Māori health, we are short of workers in Pacific health and we are short of workers in public health, so cutting the people and paying roles which you are currently not filling makes no sense at all. It's a deterioration of our health service.
"You can't disguise it as anything else."
The government sacked the Te Whatu Ora board, replacing it with Dr Lester Levy as commissioner in July.
Campbell said that had created an "opaque process" designed to carry out the minister's instructions, when the real job "should be to fulfil the needs of the health system, not meet targets set by the minister".
"I think we've got many areas where patient safety and public safety is already significantly under threat and reducing people particularly reducing positions it was agreed should be funded ... is a clear and present danger."
Sir Collin Tukuitonga says the cutbacks will aggravate the country's "shameful record" of inequities. Photo: Elise Manahan/ University of Auckland
Sir Collin Tukuitonga, who resigned as chairperson of the Te Whatu Ora Pacific Senate last year, called the decision deeply flawed.
Sir Collin said the "slash and burn approach" would save some money in the short term, but create more problems in the longer term.
"The reference to re-shuffling deck chairs on a sinking ship comes to mind."
The cuts, which were in the areas New Zealand most needed to invest in, would aggravate the country's "shameful record" of inequities.
Digital Health Association provides warning on health cuts
Digital Health Association chief executive Ryl Jensen warned the sweeping cuts to the data and digital team could have catastrophic consequences.
Jensen said there have already been significant cuts to funding for projects to modernise the ageing and fragmented system.
"The cuts are affecting a range of staff across the data and digital directorate ... they're also affecting staff that can actually do any transformation projects so it's a range," she said.
"Overall, we're going in the wrong direction in relation to digital health, the digital health programme has already had massive funding cuts.
"We don't really have a productive system ... that's been a long-term thing over a historical period."
The country was risking another cyberattack like the one which hit Waikato District Health Board in 2021, reducing the hospital to pen and paper for three weeks.
A 2020 case where a man died at Southland Hospital after his paper notes were lost showed how high the stakes are, she said.
She had raised that case with the government, who were "not listening".
The "ludicrous" move went against the government's own policy statement on health, which talked about the importance of digital tools helping connect the health system, she said.
Jensen noted the system currently relied on more than 6000 IT applications, many of which were no longer supported.
"The impact will be that there will be slower deliveries of some ssential things like payroll systems and normal back-up for technology services that people use and long-term projects will inevitably be slowed," Campbell said.
He said In defence of Te Whatu Ora, nearly all of those people were transferred over from the Ministry of Health and it was the Ministry of Health that accumulated the largest software development house in NZ.
"It was very inefficient, it was working on a wide range of projects, it did need to be dealt with but now Te Whatu Ora has the problem taking big cuts and changing direction so dramatically, anyone involved in technology will tell you it's not the right thing to do, you need to have projects which have long-term logic and sustainability and you need to staff them appropriately."
Health NZ has repeatedly warned successive governments of the risk of its ageing systems.
Health NZ and Health Minster Dr Shane Reti both declined to appear on Morning Report.