On the Tiles: Ayesha Verrall on lightning strikes, health targets and mātauranga Māori in science

Health Minister Ayesha Verrall. Photo / Jed Bradley

At the age of 21, Ayesha Verrall was running across the street to get out of the rain when she had the type of experience you don’t easily forget.

“I felt this kick in my calf just as I ran under the bus shelter and then I heard the thunder,” the Health Minister tells the On the Tiles podcast, recalling the moment she was struck by lightning.

Verrall, of course, isn’t the only politician to have been struck from the heavens, with National’s Maureen Pugh also suffering this ordeal earlier in her life.

“I don’t want to steal Maureen’s thunder, but it’s not a nice experience to have, actually,” she says.

Verrall was recently appointed Health Minister, a portfolio that accounts for $22 billion in the annual budget and around 80,000 public servants. It’s a massive undertaking and one that comes amid a range of significant challenges for the health department.

She inherited the Health Minister role from Andrew Little in a Cabinet reshuffle earlier this year – and was almost immediately called on to make a big call when former Te Whatu Ora chair Rob Campbell’s comments on LinkedIn made headlines around the country.

Asked by On the Tiles host Thomas Coughlan about that decision, Verrall says that everything moved quite fast.

“It all happened over a very short period of time, from hearing about what happened on Sunday night through to Tuesday when I announced my decision,” says Verrall.

“I was able to get advice quickly and I think the decision was relatively clear cut in terms of the interpretation of the code and the issues of confidence that I mentioned in my statement.”

Verrall stresses that the performance of Campbell in his role as chair did not have any impact on the decision.

“It was only 32 days I was on the job. Absent that issue [the comments on LinkedIn], I wouldn’t make a decision over such a short period of time over performance.”

This marks only the beginning of Verrall’s tenure and she may face even bigger challenges in the months ahead.

So what are her plans for the health sector? Could health targets make a comeback? What is her view on the relationship between mātauranga Māori and science? And what merits does she see in the centralised DHB system?

Listen to the full episode of the On the Tiles podcast to hear the Minister dig into all of these issues and more.

On the Tiles is available on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes are available on Fridays.