DHBs need to be democratised and adequately funded

DHBs need to be democratised and adequately funded - not sacked

The thin veneer of democracy which DHB boards have put on the running of health services since 2001 is again exposed by the government's sacking of the Southland board, according to DSC health spokesman David Tranter.

Those who have followed the history of the boards will recall that within the first term of their establishment no less than 17 members resigned. Given that generous fees were being paid that was a stunning indictment of the then Labour government's agenda whereby locally elected members were there for no other reason than to echo the patsy role of the four government -appointed members on each board.

As one of the first to resign (from the West Coast board) I did so when it became obvious that the board had no power whatsoever as every significant decision was made in Wellington while incompetent local management had clearly supplanted health professionals in deciding how hospitals should be run, Mr. Tranter said.

Five years later I tried again but again resigned after a year, the last straw being when an outstanding health professional was treated with utter contempt by a CEO (who is now the Greens' health spokesman in Parliament) and a board chairman who admitted at his first meeting that he knew nothing about the health sector.

Obviously government appointed him for reasons other than promoting good health care. But even then, sensible management would have avoided the loss of that professional - and a valued anaesthetist who resigned as a direct consequence of the appalling treatment of her colleague.

The sacking of the Southland board confirms the powerlessness of the boards as was always intended by Annette King when she established them to simply be the fall guys for problems which were always going to arise, not only because of under-funding but also as the new management system saw hordes of ill-qualified and/or irrelevantly experienced managers dictating nonsensical agendas to highly-qualified and experienced health professionals whose knowledge should have been treasured instead of being treated with contempt as I frequently saw on the West Coast. One can only wonder at the role of management in the SDHB's difficulties since it was clear from my two years on the West Coast board that management ran the show with board members frequently finding out about major issues only when they appeared in the local media, Mr. Tranter said.

If the boards are to have any sensible role in the future of the public health system they need totally re-organising including the power to make decisions based on local needs and with effective policy input from health professionals rather than by directives from Wellington channelled through the four government-appointed members and hopelessly over-bureaucratised management empires.

ENDS

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