6. Question No. 6—HealthSIMON WATTS (National—North Shore) to the Minister of HealthQuestion No. 6—Health6. SIMON WATTS (National—North Shore) to the Minister of Health: How many unfilled vacancies are there in total across the district health boards and how many of those vacancies are for nurses?Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister of Health): I'm advised that as at the year ending 31 March 2021 there are approximately 3387 fulltime-equivalent vacancies across all DHBs. I note that this includes corporate vacancies and represents 5.1 percent of the total number of fulltime-equivalent positions in 2019. In response to the second part of the member's question I'm advised that as at the year ending 31 March 2021 there are approximately 1168 fulltime-equivalent vacancies for nurses. I note that the figures that I have used today exclude the Waikato DHB. That DHB has recently advised that numbers that it previously supplied which I had reported to the House on had discrepancies that they are now working to resolve. In the long term we are reforming the health system as a single Health New Zealand organisation that will allow for true national planning of our workforce and allow us to start investing in and building the workforce we need for the future.Simon Watts: What does he say to aged-care providers who are reporting that district health boards are poaching their staff resulting in over 500 vacancies in nursing alone under his watch?Hon ANDREW LITTLE: I say that the problems that the aged residential care sector are suffering are similar to the problems that other aspects of the health sector are suffering. There is a shortage of nurses. That is why we're working seriously with the New Zealand Nurses Organisation and the DHBs to get the remuneration package right. That's why we also worked on the safe staffing agreement and why we will also work on a recruitment campaign. But the reality is when we deal with the remuneration issues with nurses in the public sector it will have implications for nurses in primary care and aged residential care and we will need to work with the employers in those sectors to make sure that what we do for our entire nursing workforce is in the best interests both of nurses and the population of New Zealand as a whole.Simon Watts: Why has he not taken any urgent action when health providers including district health boards and aged-care facilities have been crying out for his help with this crisis?Hon ANDREW LITTLE: The member is totally and utterly incorrect and plenty of action has been taken. I mean you have a look for example at the exemptions that have been granted to people to cross our border to pick up work particularly in our health workforce—43 percent of those exemptions are for people going into our health workforce. When you look at the investments that we have made in ongoing personal development and upskilling and training and places in DHBs for new nurse graduates from university programmes for nursing we have invested considerably more. So plenty of action to create more places to fund more people into those roles but it is true we still have a shortage.Simon Watts: Has he shared the healthcare sector's including DHBs' concerns on Government immigration policy to the Minister of Immigration; if not why not?Hon ANDREW LITTLE: I refer that member to my previous answer.Simon Watts: What is he doing to support health providers including district health boards who are critically short-staffed because workers are being pulled into the Government's COVID-19 vaccination roll-out?Hon ANDREW LITTLE: It sounds like that member thinks it's a bad thing that we have a vaccination programme that people actually have to work on—in which case he should go to the public and tell them that. The member can't have it both ways. We have a health service that has to do a large number of things. First of all it has to pick itself up from the disaster left by the previous Government and we're in the process of doing that. And now we have a pandemic that we have to respond to and we have the usual spikes in winter infections that we have to deal with as well. All of those things are being dealt with. We have challenges in that sector. The workforce challenges are part of that. But I do note that we are facing that challenge square on which is something that the previous Government simply failed to do.