Health minister naughty over Public hospital doctor figures

30 August 2013

Health minister naughty over Public hospital doctor figures

“Health Minister Tony Ryall has been naughty over public hospital doctor numbers,” said Mr Ian Powell, Executive Director of the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists, today. Mr Powell was referring to a media statement yesterday by Mr Ryall on the voluntary bonding scheme.

“At the end of this media statement Mr Ryall slipped in a false claim that district health boards now permanently employ more than 1,000 hospital doctors than they did in 2008.”

“This is very naughty. These Health Ministry figures (31 March 2013) include 685 doctors-in-training (registrars and house surgeons) who by their very nature are not permanent. Further, these non-permanent doctors are under the supervision of the numerically embellished permanent doctors.”

“For political reasons the Health Minister has been embellishing hospital doctor numbers for nearly two years. It has become an addiction for which the medical profession has yet to discover a cure or truth serum. But the profession is working on it.”

“If Mr Ryall was as naughty as this as a school boy he may well have had to write 685 times ‘I must not tell porkies on hospital doctor numbers’,” concluded Mr Powell.

ENDS

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