Will our Public Hospitals collapse this Winter?

‘Significant worry’: New data reveals NZ’s busiest EDs as winter nears

• Christchurch’s emergency department is seeing over 400 patients a day, raising concerns about safety. 
• Dr Kate Allan says overcrowding and patient harm incidents are occurring nationwide, not just at Middlemore’s ED. 
• Health Minister Simeon Brown highlights funding for urgent care services as part of fix, but emergency doctors and GPs say long-term planning and investment is needed. 

Official figures reveal more than 400 patients are turning up daily at Christchurch’s emergency department (ED) and others are already seeing “record numbers”. 

It is a pattern the head of the Australasian College of Emergency Medicine says is a “significant worry”. 

The Herald revealed on Monday serious concerns about patient safety and a lack of staff at Middlemore Hospital’s overcrowded emergency department last winter, which included more than 1500 patients being treated in corridors in the space of just 36 days. 

A review written by clinicians said there were 43 patient harm incidents in the same time period – some of which could have involved death or severe loss of function because of delayed care or medical error. 

The enormous demand on our Public Health system comes at a time when this government is hell bent on underfunding Public Health so that it can’t meet the demand and force more subsidisation of Private Health.

Look at how National have purposely underfunded health below population inflation and an ageing population and how they will do it again this budget…

Billions Missing From Health Budget – NZCTU

New analysis from the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions Te Kauae Kaimahi shows that the health service is likely to be underfunded by between $1.2bn to $2bn at the Budget.

“We have examined the spending decisions and announcements of the Minister of Health over the past few months. These demonstrate a pattern of making a new service promise but not providing any new funding for that new service,” said NZCTU Economist Craig Renney.

“That means the commitments have to be paid out of the existing budget, which is already under huge pressure. These sneaky cuts add up to $1.2bn across 4 years.

“At Budget 2024 the government provided $1.370bn for cost pressures. This has been calculated by the Treasury as simply covering the cost of existing services. The $1.2bn of new spending are all new services on top. If they come from the ‘cost pressure’ payment above, that acts as a direct cut to existing health services.

“Assuming the Treasury cost pressure costs are right, health needs $1.713bn just to stand still at Budget 2025 in direct new funding – and likely a figure closer to $2bn once the unknown costs are added.

“If this money is coming from pay equity funding, it would be the equivalent of those low-income health workers paying for the new service themselves.

“In opposition, National said that it would “prioritise increases in funding for health and education to account for inflation.” The government now appears to be robbing the very funding set aside for inflation in health to pay for its new priorities, breaking their pre-election promise,” said Renney.

New Announcements
Commitment		Annual Amount ($m)		4-year total ($m)
After Hours Care		41
Cancer Medicines		151
Hawkes Bay Endoscopy		0.4
GP Practices		95
Private Sector Support[1]		50
Practice Nurses		6
		343.4		1,223.80

The government has also made the following announcements and has not provided any costing information with those announcements. These costs are likely in the hundreds of millions, but we simply have no current idea about if the government will provide any further resources for them.

Unknown
Bonding of Doctors
100 Overseas Doctors
400 graduate registered nurses
New Digital Telehealth Service

[1] The private sector surgery support is only for one year and so has only been accounted once.

…look at the creeping privatisation by stealth…

Waitākere Hospital ED diverting 25 patients a day to urgent care clinics with vouchers

Waitākere Hospital’s emergency department is sending about 25 patients a day to an urgent care clinic with a voucher to cover the cost.

The vouchers are offered to patients when emergency departments have long wait times and cover consultations that can cost as much as $200 at private centres.

Emergency department doctors and patients say the vouchers help relieve pressure on bottlenecked hospitals. Others say they are a quick fix that channels money away from public services.

The voucher system has been in place at emergency departments for at least 10 years. But their use has risen dramatically in the past few years at some hospitals.

…vouchers to be seen in the private sector!

The money the Government have committed for 24 hour access…

Budget 2025: Govt’s $164m plan for urgent, after-hours healthcare

…is a joke because the issue isn’t just access issues, it’s the fact it costs $200 a pop!

National are underfunding public services while subsiding more private services. They are doing this under the radar so you don’t realise what they are doing.

We are two huge sparsely populated Islands, we have always required the State to be the foundation because we simply don’t have the population density for free market dynamics to work efficiently, that’s why we end up with monopolies, duopolies and oligarchies.

The State is fundamental to NZ egalitarianism, the Right are fixated on amputating it with DOGE chainsaw revenge fantasies.

We need to stand for Egalitarian NZ, not Privatised NZ.

Will our Public Hospitals collapse this Winter?

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