Health Budget Pressures Creating Hospital Crisis - Frontline Doctors

20 September 2024

A majority of frontline doctors polled by Specialty Trainees of New Zealand (STONZ), a union for Resident Medical Officers (RMOs), are reporting serious concerns about the impact of cost pressures on Te Whatu Ora is having on their ability to care for their patients.

STONZ Executive Emma Littlehales and Plastic Surgeon Trainee says this provides evidence that the cost pressures on the health system are pushing an already desperate situation into an outright crisis. “Ask any doctor, in any hospital, and they will tell you how broken the system is. We asked hundreds, and what they reported back is immensely concerning.

“A full eighty percent of them have seen resources reduced in their services; half of them are having valuable clinical time reduced just by increases in paperwork, as admin support is cut.

“Half have said there are shortages of senior doctors in their service and seventy five percent have reported shortages in support staff such as nurses and allied health staff.

“Of those reporting reduced resources, eighty percent have said that it is affecting their ability to care for patients and half are saying it is impacting on their own health and wellbeing.

“Behind these stats are stories of unmet need, of delays making patients sicker, and of doctors burning out and leaving the profession, or leaving New Zealand for good. Further pressure is only driving the health system into a deeper crisis, doing it faster, and making it even harder to fix.

“We believe the claim that Te Whatu Ora has overspent by more than a billion dollars is a fiction. The truth is that the heath service is underfunded by much more than that. This is shown in the way that every spending cut is making things worse.

“Our hospitals were barely keeping up before this additional pressure. Now they are going under.”

STONZ is a union run by RMOs for RMOs and their patients.

RMOs’ duties account for two thirds of the hours worked by doctors across Aotearoa New Zealand’s hospital system.

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