Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Sarah Dalton: Executive Director of the on $85 million spending increase on contractors and consultants

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Sarah Dalton: Executive Director of the on $85 million spending increase on contractors and consultants · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: The oppositions having a crack at Health New Zealand and
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: the government. The agency spent eighty five million dollars more
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  Speaker 1: on consultants and contractors in the year to June twenty
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: twenty four than it did in the year to June
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty three. Now some caveats on this. That includes
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: all but half, well about half actually of labour's time
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: and power, and it also includes people and comms. An
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: increase in people in comms. Now people means hr. I
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: think comm's meaning communication staff. That's blown out from twenty
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: seven million dollars to sixty one, it's doubled. The Health
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  Speaker 1: Agency is putting the spending increase down to a global
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  Speaker 1: shortage of health workers. The roles hired on a contracting
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  Speaker 1: basis are needed to fulfill time workforce gaps, according to
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  Speaker 1: the department. Sarah Dalton's with the Association of Salary Medical Specialists.
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  Speaker 1: She's the executive director there and she's with us this morning.
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  Speaker 1: This is AzID be Exclusive. Good morning, Sarah, Good morning, Ryan.
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  Speaker 1: How I I'm very well, thank you. I'm assuming on
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  Speaker 1: the face of it you would support them spending more
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  Speaker 1: money to fill gaps that need to be filled.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, on the face of it, we would obviously, you know,
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  Speaker 2: if you and I are our family go to hospital,
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  Speaker 2: we want to know that there are other clinicians there
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  Speaker 2: to provide good care, right, Yeah, So.
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  Speaker 1: That's good, So we're happy. Case closed.
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  Speaker 2: I wish it were that simple. So we would like
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  Speaker 2: to see Fatwater Health New Zealand putting that money into
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  Speaker 2: recruiting and retaining permanent staff, and that they haven't got
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  Speaker 2: the balance right there. So every hospital system will require
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  Speaker 2: local cover. Sometimes they're basically temporary or casual doctors or
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  Speaker 2: other staff who can fill gaps. But this health system
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  Speaker 2: continues to rely too heavily on locoms to run hospitals.
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  Speaker 2: It means staff and remains fragile, and it means it's
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  Speaker 2: really expensive.
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  Speaker 1: We're never going to get that right though. I mean,
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  Speaker 1: I mean we've got actually an opposition party here criticizing
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  Speaker 1: a budget which they were half responsible for, which probably
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  Speaker 1: just goes to show you that no matter who's in power,
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  Speaker 1: we're going to be using locans up the Marzu.
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  Speaker 2: No, I still think that the balance is wrong. We
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  Speaker 2: are still waiting to see a comprehensive workforce plan and
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  Speaker 2: a workforce census that says actually Health New Zealand knows
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  Speaker 2: specifically where the people are, where the specific shortages are,
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  Speaker 2: and what the plan is to address them. You know,
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  Speaker 2: the twenty twenty three Workforce Plan identified seventeen hundred doctors
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  Speaker 2: missing from the system. This year's budget made no reference
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  Speaker 2: to those known vacancies in terms of how they were
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  Speaker 2: funding or how they were working to fill those gaps.
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  Speaker 2: And this year's Health Workforce Plan is missing an action.
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  Speaker 2: I asked the minister about it. He says, it's with cabinet.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, a lot of things with cabinet at the moment.
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  Speaker 1: Hey just randomly a lot of stories about us importing.
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  Speaker 1: You know, we've got new registrations for doctors coming in
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  Speaker 1: from Ireland and England and Australia and stuff. They're making
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  Speaker 1: up a greater percentage of our new registrations than locally
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  Speaker 1: trained doctors. Same story going with nurses. Is that really
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  Speaker 1: a big problem? Who cares? Where if my doctor was
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  Speaker 1: trained in Australia or here, they're still going to do
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  Speaker 1: the same operation on me, aren't they.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, so we always rely heavily on overseas trained doctors.
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  Speaker 2: That isn't new. Upwards of forty five percent of our
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  Speaker 2: senior doctors intend to sew overseas trained. We still don't
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  Speaker 2: even come close to training as many as we need
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  Speaker 2: here and we would like a greater investment in that.
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  Speaker 2: So on the face of it, as long as those
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  Speaker 2: doctors have are appropriately training, qualified and learn a bit
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  Speaker 2: about what it means to work in New Zealand, that
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  Speaker 2: isn't a massive problem. Although we think having a sensible
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  Speaker 2: mix of locally and overseas trained doctors helps in terms
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  Speaker 2: of again sustainable workforce.
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  Speaker 1: Because I suppose they could all bugger off at some point,
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  Speaker 1: couldn't they all? Or a pandemic or a war comes along,
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  Speaker 1: they all go home and we left with no one
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  Speaker 1: to do the operations. Sarah, thank you very much for that.
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  Speaker 1: Sarah Dalton, executive director of the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists.
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: For more from Early Edition with Ryan Bridge, listen live
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: to News Talks at b from five am weekdays, or
• 4:15
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