Medical specialist shortage costing taxpayer millions

MEDIA STATEMENT FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE,
SUNDAY 25 SEPTEMBER 2011

“medical specialist shortage costing taxpayer millions”

The continuing shortage of medical specialists in New Zealand is costing taxpayers millions and is harming patient health, the union representing senior doctors and dentists says.

The union, ASMS, is concerned at the lack of progress on a blueprint agreed with DHBs last year to address the workforce issue.

ASMS Executive Director Ian Powell says it is ironic that at a time when government spending and household budgets are being squeezed, hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars are being wasted as a result of continuing shortages and poor retention rates of New Zealand medical specialists.
A 2009 Government report estimated up to $800 million a year is spent on potentially preventable adverse events in public hospitals.

“More significantly, there is also the direct cost to patient health. But there is a clear correlation between preventable patient injury events in public hospitals and a deterioration of specialist staffing levels.”

That was borne out in the 2007 review into three highly publicised episodes of patient injury at Whanganui Hospital and other public allegations of unsafe clinical practise. The external review found that all the potential safety issues identified related to the potential impact of a deterioration in specialist staffing levels from the current safe levels, Ian Powell says.
Staff shortages and heavy workloads meant a lack of oversight, or clinical audit, was occurring.

“A survey of medical professionals agreed that supervision and support of junior doctors was the single proposal that would have most impact on reducing patient injury events.”

“And a report into why junior doctors were going overseas found that specialists’ lack of time to provide that necessary supervision for junior doctors was contributing to the loss of this workforce overseas.”

Ian Powell says the cost of training a doctor up to their final year is estimated at $1.5 million per doctor and currently those graduating each year represent about $500 million of taxpayer investment annually.

The Government’s plans to increase the number of medical school places by 200 over the next five years will increase this level of investment to $800 million.
“The loss overseas of even a relatively small number of New Zealand trained doctors each year represents a loss of tens of millions of dollars of Government investment,” he says.

In addition, the shortage of specialists and numbers heading offshore requires millions to be spent on short-term temporary cover and recruitment. District Health Boards spent more than $50 million in 2009/10 on short-term specialist locums, mostly to cover vacancies, and $6 million was spent in the same year on specialist recruitment and relocation costs.

“This is necessary spending caused by the shortage, but it is money down the drain when nothing is being done to address the root of the problem. We must see action from DHBs on the workforce blueprint,” concluded Mr Powell.
Ian Powell

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