With the economy struggling, the Government either has less money to play with - or has to borrow more. That’s why it’s been seriously reprioritising.
And one area feeling the squeeze is health - where it really matters.
But don’t worry, Chris Luxon says it’s a record spend, a record investment, and all is well in health.
Wowee, so damn what! Where are the results? All I see is another day, another headline.
It makes his talk on health seem bizarre - does he think we don't keep up with what is going on? Does he think we are dummies?
Chris Luxon says record levels of investment are happening in health, but if that’s true, why are the outcomes so poor?
And how come the headlines continue to be bad for this government when it comes to health?
Health is always amongst the biggest concerns of voters, and with an ageing population demanding more from health, more often, the pressure on National to deliver is only going to grow.
But, the difference between what National claims is happening and what is happening at the coalface is alarmingly wide.
Recent reports have revealed that frontline health workers in Northland are being asked to "fill in" on reception duties so overworked admin staff can take toilet breaks.
Outages of critical IT systems for radiology, lab results and phone services have also added to the pressure on staff.
Northland is regularly down to just one person on overnight - instead of two - to cover admin for Whangārei, Kaitaia, Bay of Islands, Dargaville and Rawene hospitals.
This lone worker also manages the switchboard for both Whangārei and Bay of Islands, and staff Whangārei Hospital's emergency department reception between 11pm and 7am.
Healthcare assistants, triage nurses, and duty managers have been asked to cover that person’s toilet breaks, take on additional paperwork, and avoid using the switchboard - is this really New Zealand?
Resident Doctors' Association head Dr. Deborah Powell has called the situation a safety risk.
Whangārei Hospital emergency doctor Gary Payinda said co-opting healthcare assistants to answer phones wasn’t a good solution, as they were already "flat out" with their own tasks: delivering blood, taking patients for urgent scans, and supervising patients with dementia.
It just seems wildly inappropriate, doesn't it - is this Luxon's version of outcomes?
Northland staff have also had to contend with multiple IT problems. So, where’s the investment?
Last month, clinicians lost access to patient X-rays and scans for several hours, and the internal system for lab results also went down.
Staff resorted to making notes on paper or in Word documents to paste in later.
Even more recently, Whangārei's switchboard was hit by intermittent faults last Thursday, which caused delays for non-emergency calls - that's poor, right?
Payinda said it all added to the frustrations for clinical staff and longer wait times for patients. It’s dangerous.
It’s not safe, and it’s Mickey Mouse.
Then there’s the recent news that more layoffs are coming for those hospital workers who make the beds and change the sheets every day.
Add to that the fact we’re not hiring our own nurses and appear to have freeze on, and it’s all a bit third-world.
The lack of investment in systems is taking its toll.
The government might be saving money, but are they saving lives?
If you can't access labs, x-rays, or CT scans for hours, and rural hospitals can’t view the imaging studies their patients have had, that compromises patient care.
Association of Salaried Medical Specialists regional industrial officer Sarah Thompson described it as an awkward workaround.
"Doctors had to delay patient care while they traipsed across the hospital to the radiology department. In one case, a patient had been transferred from the Bay of Islands because their condition was too acute to be treated there, and on arrival, they had to be re-x-rayed so their scans could be viewed."
With Te Whatu Ora scrapping millions of dollars in IT upgrades, hospitals were likely to face more outages with their ageing systems.
There’s more health truth you won’t get on Chris Luxon’s National Party podcast – glowing propaganda doesn’t align with the reality on the hospital floor.
If National wants to be trusted on health, they have to close the gap between what it claims is happening and what’s actually going on – or maybe dial back the propaganda.
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