“We’ve been stretched for so long, it’s not sustainable.”
Charges were needed “or services will have to be reduced or closed, and that will inevitably affect patient outcomes”.
Decision-makers needed to be held accountable, Chan said.
A March 2025 letter sent to the Health Minister Simeon Brown and Prime Minister Chris Luxon by Gisborne senior doctors said that without any help from the Government, medical patients presenting to the Emergency Department might have to be sent to other hospitals.
However, Brown told the Gisborne Herald the Government was investing record funding into the health system and “putting the focus back on frontline care for patients”.
He had asked Health NZ to engage directly with clinical leadership at Gisborne Hospital.
ASMS senior communications adviser Andrew Chick, who was in Gisborne this week, said 35% of senior doctor positions at Gisborne Hospital were vacant when senior doctors originally wrote to then-Health Minister Dr Shane Reti and the Prime Minister in July 2024.
The 2024 letter said Gisborne Hospital was “on the brink of collapse” and needed immediate intervention.
Chick said vacancies had increased since then and Gisborne Hospital’s senior doctor vacancies rate at 44% was worse than at any other public hospital.
Chan said there had been no tangible changes at Gisborne Hospital since the 2024 letter, despite Government claims of increased funding.
Gisborne Hospital management had been put into a difficult position and was trying everything it could.
“They don’t have a lot of say,” Chan said.
The Health NZ and Government response to date had not resulted in improved overall permanent staffing of senior doctors, she said.
The 2025 letter said critical departments at Gisborne - like radiology, psychiatry and anaesthesia - still had more than two posts in three vacant.
The pace of recruitment was “glacial”.
Chan said recruitment was bureaucratic.
She estimated it could take nine months, or longer, from interviewing to the new recruit starting.
She had seen a paediatrician recruited to her department last year, but that person had never arrived.
“I stopped counting people until they hit the ground.”
Brown said Health NZ was focusing on reversing a staffing reverse which started under the Labour Government.
“Unfortunately, under the previous government, the number of senior medical officers at Gisborne Hospital dropped significantly – from 58.9 fulltime employees (FTEs) in 2022 to 51.8 FTEs in 2023.
An active national and international recruitment plan was under way.
“In the pipeline, Health NZ has 11.1 FTE senior medical officers who have accepted offers and are preparing to start work in Tairāwhiti.
“A further two FTEs have been offered roles, three FTEs are at the interview stage and recruitment is actively under way for 10.8 FTE positions,” Brown said.
Chan said there was hope.
“We can still turn this around.”
