That sounds like great news, but when is one of many questions which remain unanswered about the package.
The announcement included proposals for 100 clinical placements for overseas-trained doctors to work in primary care, incentives to recruit up to 1200 graduate nurses into primary care over three years, a 24-hour-a-day telehealth service, and an extra $285 million for general practice over three years.
On the face of it, all these proposals have some merit, but are so lacking in detail they smack of the government feeling it had to come up with something to dampen public noise about health services.
Getting more clinical placements to train more overseas doctors to become GPs sounds good, but will our overworked GPs be in a position to carry out that training and supervision?
Similarly, recruiting graduate nurses into primary care is an excellent idea, but without addressing the longstanding pay parity issue between primary care and hospital nurses, it will be pointless long-term.
That does not seem to be on the government’s radar, despite a commitment to it from Prime Minister Christopher Luxon on the campaign trail.
It is not clear where the telehealth doctors will come from to provide around-the-clock service, expected to be launched mid-year, and it will be counterproductive if this move further depletes the existing workforce’s ability to see patients in person.
Setting up the telehealth system will not be a piece of cake either. Sophisticated information technology will be needed to protect privacy and to ensure that necessary information sharing can be done safely and effectively. We do not yet know how much money is being allocated to this.
The announcement of extra places at our two medical schools next year is welcome, but both Otago and Auckland universities had already made clear they could have accommodated more from the beginning of this year.
The government continues to bang the drum of its record spending on health and that despite that, the system is stopping the front-line workers from being more productive.
Mr Luxon again talked up the increase of 2000 nurses in the last year, although we do not know how many vacancies remain unfilled or indeed how many nurses have gone to Australia.
Curiously, he also made special mention of the increase in their remuneration since 2014 which he described as dramatic and disproportionate to other workers. Nothing was said about their years of woeful underfunding.
He said the average salary of a registered nurse is now $127,000 including overtime and allowances. New Zealand Nurses Organisation president Anne Daniels has taken issue with that, saying to get that sort of money in a year, a nurse at the top of the scale would have to work 11-hour shifts or one extra day a fortnight.
That would not be safe, as nurses working more than 10-hour shifts were more likely to make mistakes.
The primary care announcement came on the same day as the release of a damning Public Service Association report from about 1200 of its health worker members who responded to a survey on the impact of the government’s cost-cutting. They highlighted the negative effects on their services and ability to serve patients.
Mr Brown, with Mr Luxon’s support, was scathing in his dismissal of that, shooting the messenger and saying the PSA represented the bureaucracy. Talking about how wonderful front-line staff are, saying you want more productivity in the sector, but then not listening to staff when they tell you how cost-cutting is affecting their services, is hardly a winning problem-solving approach.
Maybe this line is supposed to be a shot across the bow of the health unions, but all it does is illustrate both Messrs Luxon and Brown’s inexperience in health politics.
