7 July Health Summit Postponed

“Following discussions with key participants for the 7 July Summit, our group met last night and decided to postpone the summit,” Chairperson of patient lobby group, Health Cuts Hurt, Eleanor Carter said today. “The summit was to involve DHBs, Unions in DHBs, Health Sector groups and the Health Minister and Spokespersons of political parties and was to be an attempt to find solutions to the ongoing and acrimonious industrial problems in our hospitals.”

“The concerns leading to the call for the summit were cuts to patient elective surgery and other services due to the lockouts and strikes and in particular the apparent lack of Government intervention to settle the disputes,” said Eleanor Carter.

“We have been given assurances that tripartite talks between the Minister of Health, DHBNZ and CTU on health issues are dealing with exactly these issues and that there is a shared aim to find processes that will eventually minimize disruption to patients. The next meeting of the group we understand is next Monday 9th July and our group has decided to give that process the chance to resolve matters in the first instance. Hence the postponement of the summit.”

“Health Cuts Hurt will take up the opportunity of engagement offered to us by the CTU President and will be writing to him with the proposals to improve matters that have come forward in the last four weeks. Our group acknowledges there is a difficult balance required here between the rights of patients and those of health workers but will continue to advocate strongly for patients. If the process above fails to deliver results, then our group will consider reinstituting the summit approach at our August 13 meeting.

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