Surprise, surprise! The health system in Auckland is collapsing due to underfunding:
Auckland health bosses have revealed a picture of a health system at breaking point from underfunding and population growth.
Reporting to MPs at Parliament yesterday, they spoke of a wave of unprecedented demand for acute services and staff who were extremely stressed at having to cope with more and sicker people.
"Our staff were working unexpectedly long hours and became increasingly stressed about not just how hard they were having to work but about the numbers of extremely unwell people they were having to look after," the head of Manukau Counties District Health Board, Gloria Johnson, told the health select committee.
"The problem we have at the moment, particularly over the last 18 months, [is] we've become overwhelmed by demand."
Its so bad that the former chair of the three Auckland DHBs believes they no longer have the resources to deal with a pandemic.
This isn't surprising: National deliberately underfunded health for its term of office in an effort to pay for its tax cuts for the rich. While they played up large nominal increases, these were always less than that required to counter inflation, let alone population growth and demographic change. Instead, like the rest of the public service, the health system was expected to "do more with less". The results of that policy can be seen above. What's changed is that with a new government, DHB chairs feel they can openly say it, rather than risking dismissal and revenge funding cuts under National.
It is going to take the best part of a decade to undo this damage. And no doubt, National will spend that time complaining about "overspending" and "inefficiency" and promising more vandalism if re-elected. Just like they did during the Clark government after Jenny Shipley and Bill English vandalised the health system in the 90's.
