DSC calls for public health system enquiry

10 May 2013

DSC calls for public health system enquiry

With over two decades of active involvement in New Zealand public health system issues behind him, the DSC’s Health Spokesman David Tranter is calling for a genuinely independent enquiry into the effects of successive governments replacing medical professional control of hospitals with the ever-increasing dominance of corporate managers, many of whom have no relevant experience or understanding of the ethical basis upon which medical professionals have always worked.

“For more than 20 years I have seen highly qualified health professionals trying to work around ill-advised management agendas and often leaving hospitals where they had worked conscientiously for many years to work elsewhere including in the private sector or, in some cases, leaving their previously-loved profession entirely. In my experience this has been especially so in the case of nurses” Mr. Tranter said.

“As a voluntary patient advocate over the years I have also seen many valid appeals by patients raising legitimate complaints about their treatment encountering a brick wall regarding genuine responses to those enquiries. This has been exacerbated by the fact that such patients are already often traumatised by their hospital experiences and on-going problems so that when they encounter evasion by the very authorities who should be helping them they simply give up trying to get a fair hearing.

“I have also experienced frustration with trying to get sensible answers on health issues from a variety of sources including DHBs, Health Ministers and the patient advocacy service” Mr. Tranter said.

“There is an environment of fear endemic in the public health system regarding the consequences when health professionals and patients alike raise their concerns when things go wrong; fear for their careers when health professionals raise systemic problems and fear for their future treatment when patients raise their concerns.

“It is high time that health ministers stopped hiding behind such spurious claims as I have had recently from Tony Ryall that it is “not appropriate” for him to intervene in the day to day running of the DHBs. And if the current partly-elected DHB boards are to have meaningful involvement they must have their present rubber-stamping role regarding directives from Wellington and local management changed to one where they have genuine power to represent their local communities’ interests.

“A continuation of the post-1993 political agenda driving the public health system is going to send more and more caring health professionals into the private sector or out of their chosen profession with a consequent continuing loss of the people who should be the heart and soul of the public health service.

“Another decade of the current situation and the very ethical basis upon which public health system professionals work could be lost forever” Mr. Tranter concluded.

ENDS

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