Proposed health cuts to Te Whatu Ora
The Government’s proposed health cuts don’t care if you voted black and grey, blue or yellow and pink. Notice they are all colours of a bruise.
If disestablishments proceed as proposed, more than 1000 people in Te Whatu Ora’s IT department will be gone.
These are people working on apps to send appointment notices and reminders. They keep payroll running for more than 80,000 health workers. They troubleshoot faulty equipment — even in operating theatres. Some are the only people who know how to keep life-support running for outdated, legacy technologies much of our health service depends on.
Those who remain will be left with egregious workloads to cover colleagues shown the door.
If you ask health workers what’s needed to improve the system, halving the IT department is not among the first suggestions. That’s not even the question being asked — instead it’s "who can we get away with cutting without too much kickback?"
These cuts are a choice. They’re being made by certain politicians to serve their own interests — not to make the health system better for families. And it’s not just the IT department. In the coming months many other Te Whatu Ora functions will lose valuable institutional knowledge when cuts are turned toward them. Once it’s gone, you can’t get it back.
How will any government, of any shade, reach any health target if the people who do the work are decimated? These cuts will leave more than a bruise — they’ll be fatal.
Ngā manaakitanga, nā (best wishes)
Dunedin hospital
I do not think that the seven-year-old quote for the above at $380m still stands. A two-bedroom house built five years ago cost $450,000; built today costs $650,000-plus. They are dreaming if they think that what will be eight years later, it is still only going to cost $380m. Be realistic with regard to current building costs. It would be better to enlarge the Auckland and Otago Schools’ intakes as soon as possible. If they carry on like the Dunedin hospital build in relation to the new proposed Waikato School, the extra doctors will have already qualified before said new medical school has even got started.
So Shane Reti, on behalf of the government, acknowledges the "very high degree of public interest" in the Dunedin hospital rebuild (ODT, 13.12.24). And then says he "must also underline the significant responsibilities which come with the portfolio. . . At all times we need to carefully balance individual projects and consider broader system needs." I presume that’s why the broader system needs of the tobacco companies outweigh the needs of the South for a hospital.
Burns building
A small irony in the picture of the university accompanying the professor’s attempt to defend the humanities and social sciences (Opinion, 17.12.24); the Burns building, which houses the withered remains of Humanities, didn’t make the frame.
Shortsighted changes
As a former science teacher, I heartily commend Carol Bond’s letter (ODT, 16.12.24 ) deploring the cutting of funds to science research. This government’s mantra of "back to basics" means returning to the ignorance with which poor Galileo had to contend.
Privileged and disadvantaged
Here we go again. Dr Anaru Eketone’s Opinion piece (ODT, 16.12.24) is on that same old, same old vein — Pākehā being the privileged one and Māori the disadvantaged.
Will this line of thought never alter? Obviously not unless everything they demand is received. Poor choices, lack of discipline and responsibility to one self are major contributors to their situation and this continual putdown of their own is certainly not helping.
How do you account for the successes of many immigrants to this country? Do you see extracurricular programmes and special funds being thrown at these people to help them achieve academic and/or financial greatness? I think not.
Time to move on and get over this feeling of being hard done by. To say our laws, language, culture and society is all encompassing of a Pākehā society and is of disadvantage to Māoris is so inaccurate when you see the many successes of other minority races. Time to really take a long hard look at yourself and take charge of your own destiny within this country’s society and governance. Nobody needs this separatism you seem intent on achieving above all else.
Address Letters to the Editor to: Otago Daily Times, PO Box 517, 52-56 Lower Stuart St, Dunedin. Email: editor@odt.co.nz
