Stewart Barbara: Urgent Debates — Hawke’s Bay District Health Board—Appointment of Commissioner 
Stewart Barbara: Urgent Debates — Hawke’s Bay District Health Board—Appointment of Commissioner 
[Volume:645;Page:14539] 
BARBARA STEWART (NZ First) 
: 
 This is an important issue and it is going to remain so until there is some resolution. We all agree that the sacking of a democratically elected district health board is an absolute last resort. It is to be hoped that this sacking of the Hawke’s Bay District Health Board and its replacement by a commissioner is not an indication of things to come in the health system and not something we will see repeated on a weekly basis. 
Two weeks ago the Capital and Coast District Health Board got into trouble for its perceived financial mismanagement for its failure to run a large and complex organisation while a new hospital was being built and for the running down of specialist services because of staff and funding shortages. Last week we had a report from the Auckland District Health Board about mental health services and those services did not get a very good report at all. Now the Hawke’s Bay District Health Board has been fired and replaced by a commissioner. I think we have to realise that these are very drastic measures and this is very bad news that we are hearing about. In the short term this will result in a lot of upheaval for the medical staff and consequently for the patients. 
When we look at the situation we see that the people of Hawke’s Bay deserve the best possible health care they can get. This daily debacle we hear about means that something has to be done and it has to be done radically. No one is asking when we can expect to see some resolution to this whole mess that we find ourselves in. I can understand why the people of Hawke’s Bay are really aggrieved. It was an elected board it did not have an opportunity to perform to the expected levels and we know that it had been in place for only 72 days—72 days after the board was elected it was sacked. It is a very interesting scenario. 
This afternoon the Minister said that the organisation was dysfunctional and in a rapidly deteriorating financial situation. If we look at that financial situation we see that it is only $7.7 million in the red and within the target range of coming out plus or minus 1 percent of its revenue. The Minister may not have noticed but there is not a district health board in the country that has not had financial problems and the problems of the Hawke’s Bay District Health Board are relatively minor when we compare them with some of the others. 
We will be very interested to read the report which we have heard today will be released on 17 March and the Minister has just emphasised this again. All we can say is that the level of confrontation that has arisen in this debacle has to be resolved as soon as possible and with the absolute minimum of trial by media. The Auditor-General needs to be very heavily involved and basically to lead this review if the Minister will not be involved in a hands-on way because it is only then that we will be able to have any confidence in the report and the investigation that is currently going on. 
We agree that the Minister needs to lead from the front on this particular issue. After all is said and done he is responsible for public health services and in New Zealand First we hold him so. We need some sort of assurance from him that the other district health boards will not have confidence in them eroded as has happened with the Capital and Coast District Health Board and the Hawke’s Bay District Health Board on a continual basis. It is not good enough. We need to trust our health system particularly given the amount of money that is invested in it. We know that other boards are also in dire financial straits and we do not want to see a repeat of this particular performance. 
We know that health service dollars have to be spent wisely in order to get the best possible value and the services must be appropriate and of the very highest quality available. I for one know that the long-winded purchasing procedure delays by years and years the modern equipment that many of our hospitals deserve and need here in New Zealand. 
We believe that Ron Paterson when he came to the Health Committee a few weeks ago had a very valid point when he stated that our district health system was unnecessarily complicated for the size of the population we have here in New Zealand. We have 21 district health boards. Often many of those boards are carrying out the same functions and it is more than likely that quite a few services could be amalgamated so that the best value could be obtained for the people of New Zealand. The health system needs some reorganisation but we do not believe that boards should be routinely castigated publicly because they disagree with the Minister or because they have funding challenges ahead of them. 
I was interested to hear the Minister adding that another reason for sacking the board which is that hospital clinicians were critical of it. When are doctors ever happy with a district health board? Very very rarely I would say. When we looked at it we saw that only two of the 120 clinicians at the district health board had ever publicly had a go at the Hawke’s Bay District Health Board. Ironically one of those clinicians has since left; he marched with his feet. 
We know that the health portfolio is causing this Minister some grief and exposing the board in this particular way is a very interesting way of trying to get the health system back on track again. We also know that we need a well-functioning organisation that will look at the health boards with a lot of interest. We think that concerns need to be dealt with and dealt with quickly so that the people of Hawke’s Bay can get back on track with a minimum of trial by media which achieves absolutely nothing. Thank you.