Senior doctors blame DHB deficits on underfunding

WELLINGTON: Senior doctors are blaming underfunding and poor decisions for the district health boards’ deficit blowout.

At the end of December, the country’s 20 DHBs expected their collective yearend deficit to be $178 million.

That figure has since risen to $189 million, and health officials say financial pressures, including a nurses’ pay settlement, could push it up to $225 million.

The senior doctors’ union blamed underfunding by the Nationalled government and poor maintenancedeferral decisions by DHBs.

The executive director of the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists, Ian Powell, said eight years of underfunding of health by the former government was to blame.

‘‘I think that’s ultimately where the bullet has to be directed at: underfunding and poor leadership government,’’ he said.

‘‘Also, district health board’s themselves have been rather like possums in the headlights over this and have made some poor and shortsighted decisions because of that pressure,’’ Mr Powell said.

Health Minister David Clark declined to be interviewed on Friday or today.

He said in a statement the size of the DHB deficits should come as no surprise, given systematic underfunding of health by the previous government.

He said he’s made clear to DHB chairs his expectation that they are careful stewards of health funding and must take care to contain costs given current constraints.

He reiterated Government commitment to a wellfunded public health service but said it’s not possible to achieve everything in its first Budget.

National’s health spokesperson, Michael Woodhouse, rejected the underfunding claim: he said the total DHB deficit was less on his government’s watch than it was under nine years of the Labour before that. — RNZ