3. Hon TONY RYALL (National—Bay of Plenty) Link to this
to the Minister of Health
When will hospitals begin advising individual patients that their specialist appointments or elective surgery will have to be rescheduled because of disruption by next week’s junior doctors’ strike?
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Minister of Health) Link to this
I am advised that they already have. I am advised that when the strike notice was issued most patients were told that it was possible their appointments would have to be rescheduled. As yesterday’s mediation did not result in a settlement, final confirmation of the need to defer appointments will be sent to patients today.
Is the Minister aware that in fact patients will be disrupted not just for the 2 days of the strike but for most of the working week, meaning that the number of patient treatments being delayed is significantly greater than the 6,300 he quoted yesterday?
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE Link to this
Yesterday’s discussion illustrated that the member could not add up the estimates that I gave. Of course it stands to reason that when one operation is rescheduled it impacts on others that occur later. But what is essential for me and for this Government is that patient safety is maintained, and that we work to find a win-win solution for a situation that I am afraid I have to say is the responsibility of the Resident Doctors Association.
Lesley SoperHon DAVID CUNLIFFE Link to this
Because of the unrealistic bargaining position of the Resident Doctors Association. I am advised that the association has not moderated its original claim of 20 percent in 2 years; now it is 30 percent in 3 years. The association wants more than any other health sector group. I have been advised that its members have been offered an increase similar to that offered to their fully qualified senior colleagues, yet they have rejected it. There are 57,000 other employees in the health sector who have ratified agreements in line with what has been offered to the junior doctors. In short, it is hard to see what planet this group is on.
Is the Minister really telling the House that it is not he who is running the show now but Deborah Powell?
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE Link to this
If that is the best the Opposition can do in the face of 8,000 New Zealanders having their elective surgery disrupted by a person and an organisation that is taking a very short-term approach to this bargaining, then the Opposition is in worse shape than I thought.
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE Link to this
At the end of the day, the people who will suffer from this strike are the patients and public of New Zealand. It is my view that the reason for this suffering is the bargaining tactics of the Resident Doctors Association. I am advised that over 80 percent—nearly 90 percent—of strike action in the health sector between August 2005 and February 2007 was related to negotiations run by Contract Negotiation Services. This company is run by Deborah Powell and represents around 7 percent of health sector employees. I am advised that the average first-year house surgeon earns $88,000 in his or her first year, plus 6 percent superannuation, 6 weeks’ holiday, 2 weeks’ study leave, and free meals. Many workers would consider that a reasonable package for a first-year graduate. In addition to the offer that has been put before the Resident Doctors Association, the Government has, of course, also funded 40 extra places at medical school per annum and has recently funded increases for the Medical Training Board.
Is the Minister aware that the Auckland District Health Board has advised today that over 1,500 specialist appointments and elective surgeries have been cancelled at that district health board alone, which means that the real number of patients whose care is being disrupted is likely to be over 10,000?
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE Link to this
It is unlikely that that member will ever be able to run any show if he cannot propose solutions. I can only take from his invective that he would cave to the unrealistic demands of the Resident Doctors Association.
How has the health system reached the stage where the Government has put $6 billion extra into it, there are endless staff shortages across the health system, and we are getting strikes affecting many thousands of patients; it is a real mess, is it not?
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE Link to this
There are many, many successes in the health sector, and one of them is the Government not folding to give Deborah Powell’s union double what any other union in the health sector has got. It does not matter whether this strike lasts 2 days or 2 months; this Government is not going to fold in the face of such unrealistic demands.
Hon Bill English
Madam SPEAKERWould the Minister give that same answer to the grandmother who waited in great discomfort for a year to get a hip replacement that has now been cancelled; and how long will she and thousands of other patients have to wait to get back on to another one of the Government’s ever-growing waiting lists?
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE Link to this
Quite clearly, the Government’s primary motivation here is to deliver health services to the New Zealand people who need them, and that includes every person whose elective operation or procedure has been disrupted by this unnecessary strike. But I repeat two key points: the public expects more of an Opposition, more of a so-called Government-in-waiting, than carping about problems; it expects solutions—
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE Link to this
The solution to this issue, I say to Mr Ryall, is not to fold in the face of a union that thinks its members deserve more than double what everybody else gets.