"No shortage here", says the austerity government.
How politicians make health problems go away.
A patient needs a hip replacement. Badly.
Putting them on a looong waiting list looks really bad politically…they might be ‘waiting’ months, or years, or forever.
And what if many of the specialists have looong waiting lists? Politicians would have to admit the system is badly underfunded, underresourced, understaffed.
But then the current government's frequently repeated statements of:
‘No, we are not understaffed. We are actually overrecruited.’
‘No we not under resourced. Health New Zealand does not need more resources. We actually have $1.4 billion more that we need to cut.’
…would be shown for what they are: fiction.
It is much better for the government if GPs simply stop referring patients. (Out of sheer frustration.)
And that is what is happening.
“Move along. Nothing to see here.”
--Gary Payinda
Unfortunately SubStack only allows me to reply with a like/heart, when really, I am angry.
I worked on a clinical referral system in the NZ public health system a decade ago that replaced fax machines in GP offices with an electronic referral. The referral request was triaged by a peer group of primary/secondary clinicians and the system allowed the referring doctor to provide real time feedback to the Patient.
But most importantly, the system helped to measure where demand for services exceeded what had been planned, so that could be fed back into the next round of planning and funding.
But not with this government who have decreed that tax cuts for wealthy people are more important than meeting the health needs of people who cannot afford private healthcare. Absolutely shameful and the main stream media are complicit.
And Seymour's comments on RNZ this morning more than hint at the end goal of privatization of the Healthcare system- exactly as Dr Gary has previously predicted/ warned.