Unfocused, wide ranging voluntary redundancies at Te Whatu Ora will further destabilise public health to meet Government imposed spending cuts, the PSA says.

Today Te Whatu Ora issued a call for voluntary redundancies to specialists working in health administration, advisory, and knowledge roles.

Off the back of the hiring freeze that is leaving hoards of vital health roles unfilled, hundreds of experienced workers are now expected to leave the health system.

"This Government is deliberately destabilising the foundations of the overall health system that make every operation, diagnosis, vaccine, scan, or other public and community health service possible," says Public Service Association Te Pūkenga Here Tikanga Mahi National Secretary Kerry Davies.

"Any reduction in the health workforce will compromise people’s health. There’s no actual plan, no targets for what they’re trying to achieve in terms of improving health outcomes. It’s just a rash and reckless cost cutting exercise that looks to be part of the Government’s agenda to strip back public services as a prelude to privatisation," Davies says.

"Te Whatu Ora is being forced to meet the Government’s unhinged and unplanned defunding of healthcare, no matter the consequences."

Teams impacted include administrators across the system, procurement and supply chain, information, analytics and research, policy and programmes, as well as communications, finance, and HR. Anyone in these areas can submit an expression of interest in voluntary redundancy.

"We stand to lose people keeping medical records safe, getting our health data in front of clinicians, scheduling our scans and operations. People monitoring supply chains, so the right syringe gets to the right ward at the right time for a patient to get their medication."

"Prime Minister Luxon and Health Minister Reti chose to rebrand chronic Government underfunding of health as a deficit to force their slash and burn approach.

"Just as they did for other public services, the politicians target people working behind-the-scenes because they think they can get away with it. But clinicians are well aware patient care depends on administrators, IT support, and logistics workers.

"There are already excessive vacancies being carried in these roles because of the hiring freeze. It will be unreasonable to expect people who already have demanding workloads in a stretched health system to take on even more work because of these cuts," Davies said.

"We’re already hearing horrifying stories of 72-hour wait times and worse for mental health care. Gouging at the foundations of an already stretched-to-breaking system will mean people won’t get the care they need.

"Public health for all is a value most people in Aotearoa take pride in. Our communities desperately need more health resources and funding, not less," says Davies.

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