Simeon Brown has underfunded public health and has blood on his hands

Minister told Stuff a month ago that new Waikato Hospital beds were on track. Now he says they’re not

Minister of Health Simeon Brown has confirmed that a modular ward planned for Waikato Hospital, which would free up beds in the emergency department and promote faster urgent care, has been delayed until next year.

This comes the same week that a patient died in a toilet at the hospital after waiting for nine hours to be seen in the emergency department.

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Stuff

 

Simeon Brown has underfunded public health and has blood on his hands!

National are mutilating our public health system into a privatised American one and you are letting them!

This…

Elective surgery waits: How private hospitals plan to cut backlogs

Health Minister Simeon Brown has told Health NZ (HNZ), the Crown’s behemoth healthcare provider, to outsource the volume of elective surgeries necessary to meet targets and to lock in private sector delivery with long-term contracts; he’s asked for the first five-year contracts by early next year, and contracts of up to 10years thereafter.

NZ Herald

…as Nicola Willis demands another half a million out of health…

Public sector bosses ordered to look again for new cost savings

Newsroom understands the coalition Government is once again calling on public service agencies to sharpen their pencils, as the finance minister hunts for efficiencies ahead of next year’s Budget.

Finance Minister Nicola Willis tells Newsroom details of the Budget process are confidential and that no decisions have been made by Cabinet yet. Other ministers are remaining similarly tight-lipped.

But sources tell Newsroom letters of expectation have been sent to public service chief executives, once again drawing their attention to the spending of taxpayer money and asking them to look at their spending to see where savings could be made.

Newsroom

 

…as the impacts of cutting Health IT budgets occur…

Auckland and Northland hospitals hit by major IT outage, chaos in EDs

Hospitals across the North Island have been hit by a major IT outage, impacting access to crucial patient information and causing chaos in emergency rooms.

From late yesterday, the outage took down ED, laboratory and inpatient systems in Auckland and Northland.

This forced nurses and doctors to resort to manual back-ups, paper-based systems and whiteboards overnight.

The Public Service Association (PSA) said nurses had to take on admin tasks, creating “chaos” in EDs and other departments.

This incident had “potentially deadly consequences for patients”, the PSA said.

NZ Herald

…and cutbacks make Public health dangerous…

Wellington Hospital Emergency Department went into code red nearly twice a day in 2025

Wellington Hospital’s emergency department went into its most critical code red status on average nearly twice a day between January and October last year.

RNZ

…let’s be clear.

All those NZ First voters dependent on Public Health are slashing their own throats.

All those who are voting National are vandalising their own public health.

All those who aren’t voting are burning their own hospitals.

National are mutilating our public health system into a privatised American one and you are letting them