Sir Ian Taylor: The fall of Rob Campbell - why our health has been forgotten in political debate

The outspoken Rob Campbell, who has been sacked as Health NZ/Te Whatu Ora chairman following social media comments on National's Three Waters policy. Photo / Michael Craig

OPINION

During the 2022 Health Informatics NZ Digital Health Week in Rotorua last December Rob Campbell was welcomed into the conference by a traditional Maori Powhiri, while a packed Energy Events Centre of lobbyists, vendors, suppliers and staff from Te Whatu Ora watched on in anticipation of Rob delivering his keynote address.

Rob has never been one to mince words or indeed, “to call a spade anything other than a spade”. I choose that phrase intentionally because it means “to speak the unvarnished truth, to speak plainly and without embellishment and without softening the hard realities of that truth.”

It is the reason I had assumed he had been given the hugely challenging task of trying to fix a health system that seemed to be in a state of terminal decline. So often it seems that governments, of all colours, bring together boards and advisory groups to simply silence the questions being asked of them, safe in the knowledge that they now have a standard reply, “we have appointed a task force to look at this - we await its report.”

For once a government seemed determined to put someone in charge who would not hide behind the normal wall of platitudes and bureaucratic ‘non-speak’ but instead would give him the freedom and latitude to swing that spade.

In his keynote address at the Rotorua Event’s Centre on that day, Rob did not disappoint. He made it emphatically clear that the historical issues within Te Whatu Ora were systemic and the core of the rot was the very people who sat in the room.

He went on to state that he and CEO Margie Apa had gone through the list of top-level management in Te Whatu Ora intentionally looking for people who they felt could contribute to a better future for the health ministry.

The list wasn’t long and the exercise was quickly abandoned. Rob also said that it was ironic that the majority of the people tasked with fixing health equity in New Zealand had never lived below the poverty line, and never experienced poor health services, so how could they tell those very communities what is best for them?

Rob fired warning shots putting everyone in that room on notice. No one was in any doubt as to where he stood - things needed to change. The issues were systemic and he was looking out at a room of people who were part of the system that was no longer working, for anyone.

Vendors weren’t spared either, as Rob made it clear in no uncertain terms that there were too many comfortable relationships in the Te Whatu Ora procurement process, and that too needed to change.

For those caught on the wrong side of the ever-growing socio-economic divide, for nurses and hospital staff who were having to go on strike to have their concerns heard, for laboratory workers who were being pushed to breaking point by foreign-owned vendors, here was someone who indeed had the courage to call a spade a spade.

This was not about politics - this was something that we all needed to hear and we needed to hear it from someone who had an opinion and was not afraid to voice that opinion, whether we agreed with it or not.

Rob’s support of Chloe Swarbrick’s member’s bill to ban alcohol sponsorship in sports and give local councils the power to control alcohol sales, trading hours and locations, surely fell within the realm of a person charged with improving the health of all Kiwis. It should have been irrelevant that Swarbrick was a member of a political party.

This was a health debate we needed to have and, as Head of Te Whatu Ora, Rob’s opinion was important for us to hear. The irony, of course, is that he had that opinion whether he voiced it or not, and behind the scenes that would surely influence his thinking as he grappled with the enormous task of fixing a broken health system.

Equally, it is important to know where the Head of Te Whatu Ora stands on the vexed issue of co-governance because, on the surface at least, it appears to be an attempt to address an issue that Rob highlighted in his Rotorua keynote.

How can people who have never themselves lived below the poverty line, and never experienced poor health services, tell those very communities what is best for them?

Both Christopher Luxon and David Seymour should have taken this as an opportunity to open up that discussion for all of our benefit, rather than demanding that Rob be fired, for expressing an opinion of something that was well within the remit he had been given by the government.

How refreshing it would have been to see politicians refuse to play politics with something as important to us all as our health system and instead reach out to start a discussion with Rob that just might help us all understand what co-governance actually might mean when it comes to something as important as the health of the nation, and particularly the health of those who are caught on the wrong side of the socio-economic divide.

Imagine if the concept of co-governance was taken beyond the red flag of race and extended to governing alongside communities that were in most need of being listened to. A concept that could be extended to the staff at the cliff face as well. But maybe that’s an opinion too far!