Public Health in Dire State

Finally, the Government appears to have listened to the public’s frustration with our crumbling health system. Waiting lists in primary and secondary care appear to be growing longer and longer with poor outcomes for the most vulnerable.

Will the appointment of the energetic Minister Simeon Brown offer more practical early solutions, or is it just re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic? Only time will tell, but time is ticking on the future of our Public Health system – once the envy of so many!

New Zealand appears to be drifting to what Dr Art Nahill has labelled as a “wildly inequitable two-tiered health system.” (NZ Herald 15 Jan 2025.) Nahill points to the fact that “most people now struggle to access the most basic healthcare or wait unacceptably long for it.” In stark contrast the private healthcare sector is surging ahead providing timely healthcare to that small percentage of the population who can afford health insurance. With no government subsidised health insurance, as is the case in Australia, most retirees can no longer afford the luxury of health insurance and have to watch in silence, and pain, while others with less severe conditions can leapfrog the system by choosing private healthcare surgery.

As Dr Nahill observes – “Wait lists in public get longer and longer because many specialists are preferentially spending their limited time in the more lucrative and more well-staffed private sector. So, what do hospitals then have to do? In order to meet wait-time standards, they have to outsource work to those very same doctors in private clinics or theatres.” Do the most severe, highest needs cases get urgently transitioned to private care? Dr Nahill has personally witnessed lower risk patients being “cherry picked” for transition to the private system.

Is this the NZ healthcare system we all want to see going forward where a private system dictates who gets medical attention? Grey Power stands against this growing privatisation of our health system that creates huge disparities in patient care and siphons funds away from our struggling public health system. While NZ never offered the most advanced latest fashion medical technologies, we had a reputation that all New Zealanders had timely access to equitable quality care regardless of financial or social standing.

Minister Brown – the ball is in your court now to restore New Zealander’s faith in a functioning public health system that delivers equitable healthcare to all.