David Clark

MP for Dunedin North

Health Assoc Finance

20 June 2017

Another memory lapse by Coleman?

The Minister of Health ‘couldn’t recall’ whether the Director General of Health Chai Chuah offered his resignation over the Budget funding fiasco involving the country’s District Health Boards, says Labour’s Health spokesperson David Clark.

“In the House today Jonathan Coleman was vague about what happened in the aftermath of the wrong Budget payments made to the DHBs.

”The Minister would only say that he didn’t instruct MOH top brass to tell the DHB bosses they didn’t have to claw back the payments.

“Today he conceded that the DHB chairs and chief executives had ‘a pretty vigorous discussion’ when he was asked if there had been any discussion about a motion of no confidence in the Director General.

“Asked whether Chai Chuah was telling the truth when he told DHB heads he offered his resignation or whether the Minister was correct when he said he hadn’t, Jonathon Coleman said he couldn’t recall him offering his resignation.

“The Minister could only say the DHB funding debacle was a ‘technical error’. Yet the misallocation of funding was serious enough to trigger an urgent debate in Parliament today.

“This funding debacle shows the impact of the $2.3 billion dollar shortfall in health funding over the last eight years and why we must have Labour’s fresh approach on Health,” says David Clark.

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