Cancellation Of Health Charter A Giant Step Backwards For Health And Community Support Workers

Hard on the heels of the cancellation of pay equity claims for thousands of hospital, health and community support workers, the Government's announcement today that they're dropping the Te Mauri o Rongo Health Charter is another callous twist of the knife, the PSA says.
Minister Simeon Brown's suite of changes to the Pae Ora Act will see, among other things, a repeal of the Te Mauri o Rongo Health Charter.
"The Health Charter set out shared values and principles to shape behaviours for how Te Whatu Ora will support and promote a safe working culture across health, including the funded community sector. Now it's gone, with seemingly nothing to replace it," Public Service Association Te Pūkenga Here Tikanga Mahi national secretary, Fleur Fitzsimons, says.
"Hospital, health, and community support workers are already under immense strain. They're constantly asked to do more with less. And the high frequency of assaults by patients - particularly for mental health workers - is increasingly, frighteningly normalised."
The PSA played a critical role in developing the charter, standing up a working group of health and community support workers shortly after Te Whatu Ora was established. It was developed by the health workforce for the health sector, and is a positive framework to lead and support the health system to develop relationships to achieve pae ora (healthy futures).
"A functioning health system must commit to supporting their workforce and empowering them to speak out when their safety is compromised. Otherwise we'll just do what New Zealand has done for years, and drive out our highly trained health workforce to sunnier pastures overseas.
"The commitment to a well-trained workforce with access to appropriate resources to develop their skills, as well as workers to provide person and whānau-centred services, are a challenge to this Government.
"The coalition continues to show us who and what they value. It's very clear that they're continuing to completely under-value the workers, and especially the women workers, who prop up the system to serve New Zealand whānau when they need it most."

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Otago Daily Times

18 hours ago

• Otago Daily Times

New hospital build boss to get $2.5k a day

A corporate troubleshooter is being paid $2500 a day to lead the new Dunedin hospital's build due to ministerial claims the project could drag down Health New Zealand Te Whatu Ora (HNZ) without his leadership. Health Minister Simeon Brown launched a broadside at HNZ by this week appointing Todd Corporation chief executive Evan Davies as Crown manager of the project, using a law allowing a crisis management appointment in the event of HNZ ineptitude. In a withering statement in the government's Gazette that justified the appointment, Mr Brown repeatedly slammed HNZ. It had "struggled to maintain momentum on the project and identify a path forward following consistent cost pressures and extensions to the estimated delivery timeframes for the project. "These delays have also created delays and additional costs." The minister concluded that the HNZ failings posed a risk to its ability to continue due to the size of the project, the fiscal risks and the impact on health services if "cost pressures are not adequately addressed and delivery is further delayed". He used the Pae Ora (Healthy Futures) Act 2022 to appoint Mr Davies. Section 63 permits a Crown manager to be appointed if the minister thinks there is a "risk to the operation or long-term viability" of HNZ. Mr Davies, who can claim expenses on top of his daily rate, led the Auckland Sky Tower build for gas and property company Todd. He was chairman of the new Dunedin hospital's governance committee from December 2020 until June 2023, but resigned amid project problems. In the Gazette , Mr Brown said Mr Davies would report to him and hold wide-ranging responsibility, included signing up a main contractor for the in-patient building by mid-September. The role includes "negotiating the final contract for the main works package of the in-patient building and delivery of the implementation business case to cabinet for approval within the next three months". Mr Davies was also responsible for determining the build. He would "deliver the construction scope and programme as it relates to the inpatient building (including reinstatement of additional capacity)", Mr Brown said. The procurement of long-lead items, to maintain build momentum, also falls under his remit. Mr Davies' appointment has no fixed end, but would be reviewed annually and provide "strengthened client-facing leadership", the minister said. A final report would be required. Last Saturday, Mr Brown announced changes to the Pae Ora Act, including making infrastructure a HNZ "core legislated function" and establishing an infrastructure committee. At a select committee hearing yesterday, he made "no apology for utilising the private sector to get things done and ensure people get the care they need in a timely manner". He said remedying poor health infrastructure "will require multiple decades of investment". HNZ is led by interim chief executive Dr Dale Bramley after Margie Apa stepped down this year. His department had employed a programme director for the hospital build, but the role has been vacant since last November. Two programme directors with hospital-building experience have exited in recent years. Blake Lepper, who joined HNZ as head of infrastructure delivery in March last year,is described by HNZ as the build's senior responsible officer. HNZ previously said it planned to use Crown Infrastructure Delivery — a company mandated to help struggling government agencies deliver infrastructure — to help with the build, but is unclear how.

RNZ News

a day ago

• RNZ News

Media in the middle of political skirmishes over sickness and health

Last weekend's Sunday Star Times digs into the political battleground of healthcare. Photo: Sunday Star Times Mediawatch : This week the latest Ipsos Issues Monitor survey showed 'inflation/cost of living' was - again - the top concern of Kiwis. No surprise there - or that 'healthcare/hospitals' was in second place. "It continues on its upward trend, reaching its highest level of concern (43 percent) since tracking began," Ipsos said. That - and the fact that more of those surveyed chose Labour as the party most capable of managing health - would have stood out for the government. The same is true of how the issue plays out in the media. Under the headline The political problem of health Health Minister Simeon Brown told the Sunday Star-Times last weekend the job "matters to every New Zealander from the moment they're born to the moment they die. It's a huge responsibility, but there's also significant opportunity." He'd just announced an opportunity for private hospitals - instructing Health NZ to make long-term deals with them for elective surgeries. "We haven't been ideological about it, we've been focusing on pragmatic solutions to ... maximise what's delivered both in the public and private system," Brown told Newstalk ZB the same day. The next day, New Zealand Herald political editor Thomas Coughlan reported official papers showed Treasury reckoned further cuts to health would be needed to meet the demands of the government's health delivery plan. But that didn't come up when the prime minister appeared that day on Newstalk ZB for his regular Monday morning chat. The host Mike Hosking said he couldn't agree more when the PM said people don't care who's doing their long awaited op when they are staring at the hospital ceiling. But then Hosking told the prime minister about an interview last week with a Christchurch surgeon who works in both the public and the private systems. "We need to be more flexible in public (hospitals). They even come round at one o'clock and say it looks like you'll finish after 4 or 4.30, so we won't let you do your second case," Chris Wakeman told Hosking last week. "You wouldn't close your factory at 4 o'clock if you still had work to do," he added. Later, Mike Hosking read out a text from an unnamed listener who claimed nurses and anaesthetic technicians insist operating stops early if it looks like it's going to go past 4pm. The following day Mike Hosking asked Brown if surgeries that might overrun 4pm were routinely postponed. "Look, there are heavily unionised contractual arrangements in the public system and so you do end up with inefficiencies throughout the system. Those issues need to be dealt with by Health New Zealand to make sure that it is more efficient," Brown replied. "These union agreements ... drive inefficiency and a lack of productivity. These are issues that do need to be resolved as part of (Health New Zealand) negotiations with the unions." Health Minister Simeon Brown Photo: RNZ / REECE BAKER "Absolutely not. The limits are more about management decisions on staffing costs, availability of recovery beds and how to distribute operating theatres between acute and elective work," Sarah Dalton, executive director of the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists told Mediawatch . "The barrier to providing more elective surgeries is a refusal to pay staff required to work longer hours ... and inability to provide sufficient staff to run our operating theatres to their maximum capacity." "We don't have anything in place that would stand in the way of doctors opting to work in a different work pattern or longer hours. And in fact, many of them frequently do. "Typically surgeons and anaesthetists work 10 hour days. A number of hospitals sometimes run what are sometimes called twilight theatres in the early evening or on weekends. "I don't think the way that the discussion has been presented is entirely fair - and it is somewhat misleading. "It is concerning to us that 'private' is seen as the answer when in fact they are already near capacity for what they can do. And we also have significant doctor shortages." Sarah Dalton Photo: LDR / Stuff / Kevin Stent Hosking [ returned to the issue] with Health NZ's Chief Clinical Officer Dr Richard Sullivan on Thursday. He said the proportion of "early finishes" in theatres doing elective surgery is declining - and under the government's 'elective boost' programme they had been doing some surgeries on Saturdays and Sundays too. "It's more than just the unions. You'd need a quite a big workforce to run full Saturday lists all the time. That's not to say we shouldn't look at that, but we need the most efficient way of getting people through our theatres," Dr Sullivan said. Hosking told his listeners the bottom line in public hospitals was: "If it's 4:30, we're going home." There's a bit more to it than that. While there is some extra capacity in theatres, many more people would have to be paid for more hours to do more out-of-business-hours. They don't have all the staff to do a lot more of elective surgeries, in either public or private hospitals And as the Herald' s Thomas Coughlan reported earlier this week, Treasury reckoned the Health Delivery Plan targets could mean increased spending cut targets in the year ahead. Health workforce pay increases would be limited to a degree described as "unprecedented," Treasury documents also stated. In the Herald , Brown rejected Treasury's conclusions. He said government provided Health NZ additional funding in three successive Budgets and Treasury had not consulted the Ministry of Health or Health NZ before reaching its conclusions. "Why do we still have 10 days' sick leave?" Hosking also asked the PM last Monday. He said the question had been put to him by "my tech guy" working at his house. The tech guy got a headline-making response on that from the nation's leader. "So we had five sick days until Jacinda [Ardern] decided we needed ten for Covid. Can we agree that it's gone-ish - and therefore we might need to do something about sick leave?" Hosking asked. "We might need to do things about pro rata and sick leave as well, because you know, people who are on part time contracts are getting full-time 10-day equivalency. Brook Van Velden is working through some of those issues," Luxon replied. The possibility of that went straight into Newstalk ZB's news bulletins. When the prime minister did his turn on RNZ's Morning Report soon after that, he was asked if he would support a cut in sick leave. "Well, I think there's probably a need for us to look at it ... and just make sure that we've got that setting right," he replied. ZB's political editor Jason Walls was puzzled. "Sick leave is an entitlement that everybody has. So it's not just some beltway story. It is an interesting thing for the Prime Minister to bring up. It was just Mike's mate that was talking about it." But Mike's mates behind the mic at Newstalk ZB were teed up to talk about sick leave all day. "A very strong hint that 10 days of sick leave might be going the way of the dodo," was Kerre Woodham's take when she followed the Mike Hosking Breakfast . "I get that it's a godsend if you are prone to infections during winter, but really spare a thought for the employers." Employers such as perhaps Nick Mills, a hospo guy in the capital who's also the host of Wellington Mornings on Newstalk ZB. "I go with the flow. But I'm in an industry where people take the absolute mickey," Mills told his listeners in the capital. "They're just teasing it a bit at the moment on the fact that it's going to be for only part- time employees, but that's going to change," he said. One hour later they were hearing more on this on ZB in Canterbury from the local host, John MacDonald. When Matt Heath and Tyler Adams took the ZB mic for the full national ZB network at noon, they had a similar sense of what was common sense. "10 days a year? Does the average person walking around need 10 sick days a year? I don't think so," Heath said. The questions for the workplace relations minister Brooke van Velden followed. On ThreeNews and Checkpoint she batted back questions about whether it was a gender issue. She was also taken aback that this was a talking point at all. "The only reason we're talking about this is because Mike Hosking was talking about it this morning. There was nothing from the government side to say we had an announcement to make," she told ThreeNews . In the end it will be months before all this is fully aired in Parliament, long after Mike Hosking's tech guy first put it on the agenda. Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.

Newsroom

2 days ago

• Newsroom

Seymour's ‘light up' message alarms tobacco researchers

Deputy Prime Minister David Seymour's comments to a London audience calling smokers 'fiscal heroes' – and declaring people should 'light up' to save their government's balance sheet – are reprehensible and make light of addiction, tobacco researchers say. Seymour largely stands by his remarks, arguing smokers are a net economic positive through tobacco tax and reduced superannuation from early deaths – but has conceded he was wrong to describe as 'quite evil' the Labour government's plan to create a smokefree generation. Early in its term, the coalition Government sparked controversy by repealing a law that would have banned the sale of tobacco to anyone born after January 1, 2009 and dramatically reduced both the number of outlets able to sell tobacco and the nicotine levels in cigarettes. Seymour spoke about the decision following a speech to the Adam Smith Institute, a neoliberal think tank based in London, during a visit to the UK this month. Asked about the smokefree generation concept, which has been taken up by the British government, Seymour said the New Zealand policy had been 'quite evil, in a way' and described smokers as 'fiscal heroes'. 'If you want to save your country's balance sheet, light up, because … lots of excise tax, no pension – I mean, you're a hero,' he said to laughter from the audience. Seymour told Newsroom his remarks were based on arguments he made before about the role of the Government when it came to smoking. 'I'm not seriously suggesting that we should encourage people to smoke to save the Government money. It's clearly an absurd statement, but you do have to have a bit of a sense of humour in this life, otherwise it would be too dull.' The state should make sure the public was aware of the dangers of smoking, while stopping smokers from doing harm to others (such as through second-hand smoke) and ensuring they did not impose financial costs on others. 'As far as I can tell, that condition is well and truly satisfied: I mean, the Government gets $2 billion of tax revenue from about, what is it now, 8 percent of the population?' (The Customs Service collected $1.5b in tobacco excise and equivalent duties in 2023/24, while that year's NZ Health Survey reported a daily smoking rate of 6.9 percent.) Seymour said it was 'just a sad fact' that smokers were also likely to die younger, reducing the amount of superannuation they collected, while he was unconvinced their healthcare costs would be markedly higher than those who died of other illnesses. 'If anything, smokers are probably saving other citizens money.' However, he backtracked on his suggestion the last Government's smokefree generation plans were 'quite evil', saying: 'I'm not sure that was the right word, on reflection. 'I certainly think the idea that, in 30 years' time, someone's going to have to prove that they're 49 rather than 47 does seem draconian – it seems almost a bit of an Orwellian situation.' While the Adam Smith Institute's event page billed Seymour as the Deputy Prime Minister, he said his speech was delivered in a private capacity rather than on behalf of the Government, while he had not used taxpayer money for his travel (he also confirmed the Institute did not cover any of his costs). Labour health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall says the last Labour government's smokefree policy was fundamentally based on humanitarian grounds. Photo: Marc Daalder Labour Party health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall told Newsroom the minister's remarks showed the Government had the wrong priorities when it came to its smokefree policy. 'They are prioritising balancing the books on the misery done to smokers due to the harms of tobacco.' Verrall said there was clear evidence of tobacco's cost to the health system, and the last government's smokefree generation policy had been 'fundamentally based on humanitarian grounds'. 'This is an addictive product: it is unique in that it kills half the people who use it. It's not like the more nuanced debates we have about … social media for kids.' University of Otago associate professor Andrew Waa told Newsroom Seymour's 'perverse' arguments were further evidence of the Government placing tobacco tax revenue over other concerns. 'It's literally blood money: it's money that the Government taxes on a deadly product, and yet they're still treating it as a profit margin for them.' Waa said the minister's comments ignored the social costs of tobacco, and would only help an industry 'intent on exploiting addiction at whatever cost'. 'I don't know if it's naive, or if it's [his] ideology that it's all personal choice – there's no choice when it comes to smoking some of these things. 'There's a reason why certain communities are more likely to smoke, because they get tobacco products shoved in their face all the time; by the time they decide to think that they don't wanna use the stuff, it's too late.' Janet Hoek, the co-director of tobacco control research partnership ASPIRE Aotearoa, told Newsroom that the comments were 'really ridiculous and reprehensible'. 'It just seems incredibly disappointing that Mr Seymour apparently thinks it's amusing to suggest that addiction, and early and often painful death, are a good way to generate government revenue.' Hoek said the environmental and productivity costs associated with smoking also needed to be taken into account, as did the social harm done to communities when their loved ones died prematurely. While some politicians dismissed public health experts as 'muppets … living in ivory towers', the suggestion that smokers were making an informed choice was itself out of touch with reality.