This could have helped staff Rotorua and Dargaville hospitals with doctors and also rescue general practice.
Now we have the spectacle of Christopher Luxon saying he knew from late last year that Health NZ was overspending, yet the actual records to March 31 this year, show a surplus for that month and the whole year.
There was a government auditor appointed to the board last December, so one would believe those financial statements and it is not believable that the board and administration were that grossly incompetent to get this wrong.
The forward financing planned for health will reduce in real terms due to inflation and it is astonishing to hear the now Health NZ commissioner saying there is enough money in the system now when there are still major shortages of health professionals and an enormous amount of health expenditure needed on health infrastructure including hospital buildings and information technology.
As said, it is disappointing to witness the above shenanigans, likely all for the sake of tax cuts for property investors.
Dr Jeremy West, Remuera.
Easy apologies
What are we meant to learn from the Abuse in Care report? Maybe it’s a reflection on our society, past and present, where vulnerable people have been comprehensively abused and ignored since time immemorial.
Our culture of violence runs deep, as does racism and misogyny. However, in 2024 we need to do something about it.
It was interesting to hear a leader of faith-based social services stating that the chronic underfunding from government agencies is at crisis levels. Public servants can’t speak out if they want to keep their jobs, so we have to rely on outsiders to tell us what’s going on in state agencies.
Meanwhile, the Government is re-introducing boot camps, a known cause of damage to vulnerable young people. Apologies are easy, what happens now?
Vivien Fergusson, Mt Eden.
What’s a govt for?
For over 50 years we’ve listened to calls made by incoming governments ridiculing the previous one with little will to build upon.
Instead, the call is to keep building the economy, but poor leadership has used this growth to create a two-tiered system where wealth has grown for some, but left many more fighting to survive, many struggling to put food on the table.
Repetition over the decades has only worsened this discrimination. Today we see a much-needed hospital system being eroded, their budgets unworkable; good public transport necessary to ease congestion unsupported; tired Cook Strait ferries kept going against advice on safety; failed boot camps back in place to handle those abused mainly through mismanaged economics, and a number of older women, underpaid during their lifetime, now becoming homeless.
We are gambling too with our future by underfunding climate change management and by ignoring climate scientists because a bellicose member of government states he knows better. What is a government for?
Emma Mackintosh, Birkenhead.
Pay or go public?
Should we judge our health system primarily through a financial lens: whether it can operate within budget and in keeping with the Government’s determination to lower our overall debt (while maintaining tax cuts/tax exemptions)?
Or do we judge it on delivery of health services, having enough doctors and nurses in hospitals, specialists with the right skills, keeping control of lengthening waiting lists, and still having enough GPs and other health workers in the community?
Bear in mind that a significant percentage of voters on the right who put this Government in power have private health cover and are less affected by restricted public health spending.
Here’s the choice: a better public sector (across the board) probably with a higher tax rate (or innovative taxation); or balance the books and include a greater reliance on user pays.
Barbara Darragh, Auckland Central.
Olympic offence
If only you had had a crystal ball when writing last Saturday’s editorial. Since then, the Olympics opening ceremony was broadcast to the world and viewed by millions. I’m sure that many of those viewers, being of differing religions and values‚ would have been shocked by much of the ceremony’s content.
It was far from being a family show. In fact, I suggest it portrayed the exact opposite to your editorial heading which was “Olympic values resonate with the Kiwi public”.
Ian Lucas, Tauranga.
