Government Must Do More To Build Public Health System Capability - NZNO

A new report by the Auditor-General shows the Government must do more to build capacity in the public health system instead of outsourcing to the private sector, NZNO says.

The report titled Providing equitable access to planned care treatment found that despite reforms in recent years designed to end the postcode lottery in the health care system, inequities for Māori, Pacific peoples, those living rurally and disabled people continue.

New Zealand Nurses Organisation Tōpūtanga Tapuhi Kaitiaki o Aotearoa (NZNO) chief executive Paul Goulter says the report confirms what the public already knows - that elective services in the public system are neither equitable nor timely.

"The Auditor-General found the Coalition Government’s targets are having a perverse effect whereby some districts are not accepting referrals because they don’t have the resources they need to meet the required timeframes for assessing or treating people.

"This shows the targets for the political stunts they are. Targets won’t work without additional funding to create the capacity which will enable them to be met.

"This confirms what our nurses across the health sector are saying and echoes concerns NZNO has been raising for some time."

Paul Goulter says the same vulnerable populations missing out on planned care are the same people who are struggling to get in to see their doctors in the first place to be referred.

"The Auditor-General is warning the Government that it’s push for even greater outsourcing to the private sector could lead to greater inequities. Outsourcing just strips capacity from the under-staffed primary health care sector and the under-funded hospital sector.

"There is only one way the Government can fix the health crisis and that’s by properly funding and staffing a quality public health system for all," Paul Goulter says.

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