Action, Not Reports, Needed At CCDHB

ACT New Zealand Health Spokesman and Wellington-based MP Heather Roy today labelled the confidential health report into Capital & Coast DHB leaked to the 'Dominion Post' little more than bureaucratic rhetoric, and said that it was a document clearly written by managers for managers.

"This report is clearly designed to appeal to management: nowhere in the document is there any talk of attacking the systemic failures at CCDHB and Wellington Hospital that managers and the Board are responsible for," Mrs Roy said.

"Instead, the report looks at the option of cutting doctor numbers from the ailing public health service - a suggestion that can only be described as cutting muscle and ignoring the fat; getting rid of those who do the work and leaving those who are, quite simply, excess to requirements.

"It is the doctors, nurses and other health professionals at the coalface who have held things together at CCDHB. They work extraordinarily hard, are over-worked in many cases, and to attack them in this way is unfair and futile. Safe patient care will be put further at risk by such a move.

"In true Government bureaucrat style, this report has cost a rumoured $250,000 to produce - money that would have been better spent on performing nine coronary bypasses, 16 hip replacements or 83 cataract operations.

"Rather than allowing precious health dollars to be wasted on useless reports, Health Minister David Cunliffe and his Labour-led Government should appoint an independent commissioner to resolve the terminal crisis at CCDHB and ensure that Wellingtonians can access the quality healthcare they deserve.

"This commissioner would have a proven record of turning organisations around, be able to think outside the square, form their own team, and remain free of the damaging political meddling that has become endemic in the public health service.

"Capital & Coast is a DHB in serious crisis, and Wellingtonians are dying. Cutting the health professionals at the coalface - those who actually save lives - is not the answer. The time for 'do-nothing' reports is over: it's time to cut the fat," Mrs Roy said.

ENDS

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