Newly-appointed Health Minister Simeon Brown. Photo: RNZ/Marika Khabazi
Emergency doctors and GPs are warning new Health Minister Simeon Brown the government's ambitious wait time targets will not be possible without an injection of cash.
The former transport minister was appointed three weeks ago after Prime Minister Christopher Luxon dumped his predecessor Dr Shane Reti, saying he wanted a "ruthless focus on execution" in health.
However, in an interview with Nine to Noon, the deputy chairperson of the Australasian College of Emergency Medicine, Dr Michael Connelly, said simply setting targets without "resourcing" them was a pointless exercise, as the number of patients - and their acuity - continuing to grow.
"We have to make space, you're talking about emergency departments that may be set for 30 to 50 bed spaces, having to house 60 to 100 patients or maybe even more."
Desperately-ill patients were being accommodated in hallways, ambulance bays or wheelchairs, said Connelly, who is also Emergency Medicine clinical director for Taranaki.
In order the meet the government's target of having 95 percent of emergency patients wait no longer than six hours, management needed to fix "bed block" in hospitals, so that patients who needed to be admitted were not left to languish in ED.
Cumbersome and obsolete IT systems also urgently needed upgrading, Connelly continued.
In December Te Whatu Ora announced plans to cut 47 percent of roles in its nation-wide Data and Digital team and paused or dumped dozens of IT projects.
"Wouldn't it be great if we had one IT system that would allow us all to order scans and lab tests and see results and forms for outpatient clinics? We could see more patients and more safely."
Connelly said emergency doctors had taken their concerns to previous Health Minister Shane Reti, who "didn't agree completely" on how the targets should be approached, but did recognise the fact it would not be possible to hit 95 percent immediately.
The government health targets are:
- 1. Faster cancer treatment times (80 percent of patients to receive "cancer management" within 31 days of a decision to treat)
- 2. 95 percent of children fully immunised at 2 years
- 3. 95 percent of ED patients to be admitted, discharged or transferred within six hours
- 4. 95 percent of patients to wait less than four months for first specialist appointment
- 5. 95 percent of patients to wait less than four months for elective treatment
"To set these targets and not put any resource behind them is extremely difficult," Connelly said.
"There wasn't the capability of putting financial resource into the system at the time. That was a year ago. So we're hoping that there's going to be some effort with the new minister, Minister Brown, and hopefully we can speak with him in the current weeks about this."
GPs' prescription for sickly health system
The Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners is also petitioning for some face-to-face time with the new minister.
Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners president Dr Samantha Murton said access to good primary care was key to achieving all five targets - and saving lives - yet more than one in three practices were currently closed to new patients.
"The health reform was about shifting service to primary care. You can't shift the service to primary care and not actually fund the service you're shifting," she said.
"There is ample evidence that if you have enough capacity in general practice, you will reduce your mortality by 25 percent, you will reduce your out of hours services by 30 percent, you will reduce hospitalisations by 28 percent.
"So, you can only change someone going to hospital from outside of the hospital."
The Sapere Report in 2022 found general practice up to 300 percent underfunded in low-income areas.
Murton said GPs hoped the new minister would look at the report and "action it", which was an election promise.
The College also had proposals to boost GP training, which might not necessarily involve "a massive amount of money", she said.
