Pay the doctors what they’re worth – Shane Te Pou

To fix the health crisis, the Government must pay doctors fairly, Shane Te Pou says. Photo / 123rf

THREE KEY FACTS

• The Government needs to pay health workers fairly to address the health crisis.
• One in eight senior doctor positions are vacant, with some hospitals short by nearly half.
• Health Minister Simeon Brown’s 1.5% pay rise offer is below inflation and is effectively a pay cut.

If the Government wants to get on top of the health crisis, it needs to be prepared to pay health workers what they’re worth, not attack them for asking for a fair pay rise.

There are constant stories in the media about hospitals on the verge of collapse and operations being cancelled due to lack of doctors, while vacant doctor roles can’t be filled because there’s no funding. One in eight senior doctor positions is vacant. In some hospitals, they’re short nearly half the senior doctors they should have.

At the same time, Australian states are running ads on New Zealand radio stations offering our medical workers better pay and conditions to cross the Ditch.

It’s against this backdrop that the Government has offered senior doctors a pay rise of 1.5% – less than the rate of inflation. In other words, a pay cut.

Incredibly, Health Minister Simeon Brown has turned around and attacked the senior doctors for rejecting that pay cut and announcing a one-day strike.

If there is anything guaranteed to make the doctor shortage worse in Aotearoa, it’s Brown’s arrogant attacks on the doctors.

Imagine training for 13+ years, taking on who knows how much student debt and working for years in highly specialised fields, saving and improving lives, only to be told by a 34-year-old ex-bank worker (who’s now paid more than you are) that you’re overpaid and greedy.

And whether you think doctors deserve their pay or not, the fact is we’re in an international labour market for highly specialised, in-demand skills. If we want to be able to get the doctors we need, we need to offer them a good deal – or they’ll go to Australia, the US or Europe instead.

Before lashing out at the doctors, Brown should take a look in the mirror.

Simeon Brown criticised doctors for rejecting a 1.5% pay rise offer. Photo / Mark Mitchell

It was his Government that decided to increase operational health funding by just 0.4% between 2023/24 and 2024/25 in last year’s Budget.

The Government knew that the health sector would face increasing demand, rising costs and pay negotiations. It chose not to put the money in. It chose to give tax cuts to landlords instead.

Finance Minister Nicola Willis is signalling similar pathetic funding in this year’s Budget, even while she speculates about further tax cuts.

So don’t tell me that the doctors are abandoning patients – the Government abandoned them long ago.

Putting the non-empathetic Brown in charge of health is looking more and more like a mistake by Prime Minister Christopher Luxon. Polling shows health is the top issue for voters, behind the cost of living. Yet rather than the knowledgeable, caring Dr Shane Reti, we now have an ignorant minister who is determined to play politics rather than fix the system.

The Government knows full well that it hasn’t put enough money into health to pay medical professionals what they need in order to maintain and grow the workforce.

Just like their cuts to the minimum wage, their refusal to settle pay equity claims and their attacks on workers’ rights, the lack of health funding shows this is a Government hellbent on cutting wage costs, no matter the consequences.

It’s been said before, but apparently it needs repeating: we will not cost-cut our way to being a wealthy country. A low-wage economy will fail to attract and retain the skilled people we need and leave us unable to properly staff the public services we rely on.

If this does turn out to be a one-term Government, as is looking more and more likely, a top priority for the next Government will have to be fixing this health crisis.

And that will require more money – simple as that. Doesn’t matter if it’s taking away the landlord tax deductions again, a capital gains tax, a wealth tax or a combination of the above, there needs to be a health crisis rescue plan, funded by tax on the most well-heeled.

Kiwis will back that. Because we’ve seen that the alternative – effective pay cuts for medical professionals, failing to staff hospitals properly and lashing out at critics – doesn’t work.