Wait, he’s getting paid $320 000 to amputate public health in a manufactured cost over run for just 3 days a week?
WOW that is some crazy casual public health vandalism…
The man in charge of turning around New Zealand’s health system has batted away criticism that he’s not focused on the $320,000-a-year role, saying he works 70-hour weeks alongside lecturing two university courses.
…great work if you can get it right?
‘Part-time’ health commissioner holding down two jobs
The man tasked with clawing back a billion dollar-plus deficit in the public health system is still working the equivalent of two days a week at his second job ‒ a move one senior clinician has labelled “professionally insulting”.
I’m not sure what is more offensive, that National manufactured this cost over run by purposely underfunding the health Budget to ignore population growth or that Hannibal Lester here gets $320k for 3 days a week for mutilating it?
This is just grotesque now.
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Since the role is a poisoned chalice, I assume he wanted to keep his day job. You can’t blame him really. Plus (I hate to say it) $320k pa is low for a government role of that magnitude. Hence he is being paid for part time work. Google what chief executives get of major departments.
I used to have a lot of respect for Levy but that is no longer the case .He is clearly an Autocrat incapable of working with people of equal skills .We are paying him $2000 a day for a 3 day week .This is a very important job and he is treating it like a side hustle .
The board should never have been dismissed and that happened because Luxon was incapable of understand the job they were doing and Cigaretti is even less able .I wonder if it was actually law full to dismiss the board as it would appear that having a board might be part of the required structure of the over all organization much like the set up of the constitution of a sports club or such not for profit organization .After all whatu ora should not be there to make a profit but to provide a vital public service .
Levy is a hatchet man with a very big ego.
Agreed .
He screws up everything he touches.
To be fair Levy has had some staggering successes in the past such as….as….err ummm
Health is another organisation that needs to be at arms length from any politician much the same as the reserve bank .It should have a 5 member board and be left to get on with the sole mandate being they have to provide a world class health system for all New Zealanders .Perhaps the private gougeing needs to come under the same board .
Levy is a South African qualified doctor who then migrated to New Zealand and was recognised in December 1979 as a general registrant (non-specialist) by the Medical Council. He subsequently switched to management although, years later, he was vocationally (specialist) recognised in medical administration.
In the 1990s he was a strong public supporter of the failed attempt to run the health system as a business. This included a short period as chief executive of South Auckland Health responsible for Middlemore Hospital where he was a positive liberating influence.
From the late 1990s he was largely out of the public health system, until he was appointed by National health minister Tony Ryall as chair of Waitemata DHB in 2009. This was followed by his appointments as chair of Auckland DHB (2010) and Counties Manukau DHB (2016). He resigned all three positions in December 2017 following the change of government, but in June 2019 came back into favour when Labour health minister David Clark was persuaded (in part by Ernst & Young consultants) to appoint him as a Crown monitor to Canterbury DHB, reporting directly to the minister.
Levy’s style had radically changed upon his return to the fold in 2009, with what was viewed by many as an increasingly top-down, controlling and destructive approach. In each of the positions, he came in with an embellished assertion that he had inherited a financial mess and was the right person to fix it.
In each of the four DHBs, the chief executives resigned; Canterbury’s David Meates survived longer but almost all the senior leadership team also resigned. Morale also plummeted (less so in Waitemata but dramatically in Counties Manukau and Canterbury). Ironically, following his appointment as their chairs, the three Auckland DHBs went from financial surpluses to deficits.
More info on Lester Levy.
and in the 1990’s he set up White Cross as an Independent A&E business for Profit, still running! He will be a major shareholder.
WHITE CROSS now has fingers in most A&M Clinics, A&E Clinics and Family Health Surgeries around Auckland: Care Group Ltd, Takanini Care, Pukekohe Family Healthcare, Local Drs’ Otara, A&M Three Kings, White Cross Ponsonby/Lincoln Rd, Avondale, Ascot Hospital, After Hours Provider Consortium Ltd, Tamaki Health and all registered to DFK Oswin Griffiths Carlton Ltd with association to Alistair Sullivan- a Director at White Cross Ponsonby in the 1990’s and a “friend ” of Lester Levy.
So, not only is Lester getting a $350,000 salary for his 3 days a week turning around our Healthcare system and Lecturing at University part time, he also will be getting an Income from Shareholding in the above company/ies!
The Web Grows!
If Levy was so damned smart how come the 3 Auckland Health Boards he ran turned out to be abject failures.
The guy is a dinosaur as are much of this government.
The definition of stupidity used to be doing the same thing over and over but expecting a different result.
It’s now called the New Zealand Government.
Add to that all the economists who have been around since I don’t know when who keep prescribing the same medicine which seems to revolve around punishment followed by treats followed by punishment.
Right now we have negative GDP and inflation. How does mucking around with cost slashing and unemployment improve productivity.
A unemployed person cannot be productive. Right now we are paying $60m per week in Job seeker benefits.
How many builders, electricians nurses doctors could be gainfully employed with that money. My estimate would be at least 40000.
They would be paying taxes and be productive.
Levy and his employer are totally wrong and are going to make our situation far worse. How can you make a person efficient if he is overworked or not working at all. Simple answer is you can’t.
well put tom I to have wondered for years why we have to make people unemployed or unemployable ,so the 10% can cream more money into their back pockets .
Doesn’t sound as if he has been very successful at anything he has done in the Health Sector, hence I doubt whether he has the necessary skills to fix the abortion the NZ Health System has become, the old saying often rings true “A Leopard Does Not Change the Colour of it’s Spots”.
Taxpayer dollars used supporting health professionals engaging in Maori prayers at work could be better spent attending the sick. It’s also a big ask of non-Maori staff who may not share their beliefs.
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