District Health Board needs to take back Control

Media Release

Thursday 23 August 2007

District Health Board needs to take back Control

Paekakariki Community Board chairman and Capital and Coast DHB candidate Adrian Webster, says that the resignation of a further senior doctor from Wellington Hospital highlights the dysfunctional relationship between the hospital’s management and its health professionals.

“I’m concerned that the directions being driven by hospital management are antagonistic to the expressed wishes of the communities it serves. The District Health Board as the communities’ representative need to take back control,” said Mr Webster.

He says that recent meetings in Kapiti and Porirua have revealed just how out of touch with the communities the DHB managers actually are.

“On both occasions communities were objecting to moves to privatise parts of the Board’s services to the public. At the more recent Porirua meeting Board managers appeared impervious to what was being said them,” he said

Mr Webster said these criticisms were not made lightly and he knows the DHB has a near impossible task when constrained for funds. “But it is a nonsense to suggest that money can be saved by transferring our public services over to private organisations to make a profit.

“In this situation, a profit could only be wrung from a further reduction in staff conditions or the services they struggle to provide. DHB managers are there to administer the services provided by our teams of health professionals. They need to support them not undermine them.”

Mr Webster said that he hoped a new Board would tackle the real source of the difficulties and commit itself to the real level of funding it needs from central government.

ENDS

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