Health service cuts: ‘New Zealanders are waiting too long’

Patients have to wait months for elective surgery. File photo.
photo: Unsplash/Piron Guillaume

• The country is facing a widespread shortage of medical staff
• Waiting times for elective surgery (surgery that is scheduled in advance because it is not a medical emergency) In recent months
• It also sets goals to reduce wait times in emergency rooms and for elective treatments.
• Commissioner Lester Levy said the cuts would not affect frontline workers but would impact medical professionals Another theory

Patients are waiting months for elective surgeries, while others are taking the private route and spending thousands of dollars to get timely treatment.

Health care systems are under pressure, with staff worried about shortages and burnout, and patients enduring months of agonizing waits for a diagnosis or surgery.

While the Coalition Government has set a target of reducing waiting times, it has also Cut funding to the sector.

Have you been impacted by healthcare staff shortages or budget cuts? Share your story with kate.green@rnz.co.nz

A Greymouth man mortgaged his home to pay for surgery through the private system after he waited more than a year at a public hospital.

Shannon (who prefers not to use his last name) tore a groin muscle a year ago.

After three specialist appointments and corticosteroid injections over several months, all without effect, his surgeon told him: “‘Look, if you use the public waiting system, I don’t know how long it’s going to be, but you’re going to get it done eventually.’ I said, ‘Well, what am I supposed to do until then?’ He said, ‘We’re just going to have to wait and get on with it.’”

But with the pain so severe that it was difficult to walk, and two teenage sons eager to get back to hunting, fishing and hiking with their dad, a year was too long to wait.

He decided to bypass the public system and do it privately, spending $27,500.

Just days before his surgery, his mother became another victim of system delays.

After falling on the driveway, she was taken to Greymouth Hospital, then transferred to Christchurch where she waited four days for leg surgery before being transferred to Dunedin Hospital where she waited another four days.

Every day she prepared for the surgery and ate nothing, but in the afternoon she was told that the surgery could not go ahead.

Shannon and his mother are now both recovering – for Shannon, the surgery was “expensive but effective”.

‘It’s really worrying’

In Hawke’s Bay, Anne Evans’ husband was diagnosed with cataracts in October last year and is still waiting for surgery.

“It’s really worrying,” she said. “We lead active lives – we’re in our 70s but we don’t sit around knitting and watching TV all day, we’re active people doing active things – I think it’s only a matter of time before he has an accident because he’s completely blind in his left eye.”

He can’t drive at night, and soon he won’t be able to drive at all.

Evans said he was scheduled to undergo two surgeries, the first in July and the most recent last week — but both surgeries were canceled at the last minute to attend to other urgent eye cases.

“It’s not life-threatening,” Evans said. “It’s not going to kill him. But it’s going to affect his quality of life.”

She said she couldn’t believe the health agency would cut funding when it was under so much pressure.

“huge challenge”

Commissioner Professor Lester Levy, who took over as the new board member for the Ministry of Health, said one of his first priorities would be to reduce waiting times – but three weeks later the agency’s financial situation was in tatters. Worse than he thought..

“New Zealanders have been waiting too long,” he told 9 a.m. to noon Tuesday. “In my opinion, the safest wait time is the shortest wait time, and our big challenge is to reduce that wait time.”

In a statement, Te Whatu Ora said the centre was working to reduce waiting times, with the number of elective surgeries increasing by 10 per cent in the year to May 2024 compared with the previous year.

However, its quarterly earnings report showed that Released in JulyThe data showed that nearly 77,755 patients (40.2%) waited more than four months for their first specialist appointment, compared with 68,179 patients (36.5%) in the previous quarter.

But Jo Gibbs, director of hospitals and specialist services, said demand for health services was growing because of an ageing population, more complex medical problems and new technology leading to more treatments.

Gibbs confirmed that the second phase of the project will Improve communication with patients and GPs about surgery waiting times In progress.

She said that in the first phase earlier this year, letters were sent to more than 25,000 patients who had been waiting more than 120 days for their first specialist evaluation in four specialties: general surgery, ophthalmology, gynecology and orthopedics.

They are now expanding this to other areas of expertise.