Bad look for Waikato DHB over expense disclosure delays

MEDIA RELEASE

For immediate use

2 December 2016

Bad look for Waikato DHB over expense disclosure delays

“It’s a bad look for Waikato District Health Board to be dragging the chain on disclosing the expenses of its chief executive,” says Ian Powell, Executive Director of the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists (ASMS).

He was commenting on reports that the State Services Commission is “disappointed” that Waikato DHB has not disclosed Chief Executive Nigel Murray’s expenses since he took up the job in 2014 (http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=11758623).

The DHB has reportedly attributed the delays with disclosing these expenses to technical issues, but Mr Powell says that’s not good enough.

“The State Services Commission expects annual disclosure by DHB chief executives and so does the public and the senior doctors and others working in the health sector,” he says. “It is very unusual for the State Services Commissioner to be so publicly critical of a chief executive. ‘Technical’ reasons are a poor excuse.

“It’s a serious double standard at a time when public hospitals are under unprecedented financial pressure, and it needs to be sorted out pronto.”

“Transparency within our public hospitals needs to be led from the top.”

ENDS

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