Public doctors against private insurance

WELLINGTON: Senior doctors at public hospitals have narrowly voted against asking Te Whatu Ora Health New Zealand to pay for their private health insurance.

The vote to include it in a union claim got more than 40% backing from doctors — but not the majority it needed to pass.

Demand for private health cover has been growing across New Zealand as public hospitals struggle more and more. A Bay of Plenty iwi service recently bought private health insurance for its workers, saying it was ‘‘ridiculous’’ to feel it had no choice.

Frustration also featured in the recent close vote at the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists.

‘‘There are a number of our members who are worried about access to healthcare through the public system, and that was a slightly unusual expression or indirect expression of that frustration,’’ association executive director Sarah Dalton said.

The vote failed in part because ‘‘it doesn’t sit comfortably’’ with the union’s mandate to fight for good public healthcare for everyone, she said.

Ms Dalton read the debate and voted in another way.

‘‘It wasn’t something that we were looking at . . . it came from the membership,’’ she said of the move at an annual meeting in late 2023.

‘‘It was a way of expressing frustration with Te Whatu Ora as an employer.’’

Another factor was the high toll that working in health took, from fatigue and burnout.

‘‘The message for us is we need to dig in to those issues around health and wellbeing more,’’ Ms Dalton said.

Anyone could bring such a remit but she was not aware if another attempt would be made.

The New Zealand Nurses Organisation said there had been talk among its members about private health insurance.

However, ‘‘this has never been put forward as a claim’’, it said.

The Private Surgical Hospitals Association said it was aware that insurance policy growth over the past few years had been driven by employer schemes.

‘‘Some private health employer entities would offer schemes, but certainly not universally,’’ it said.

‘‘In the private surgical hospital sector, hospitals don’t employ doctors, so the model is different than in public.’’

It had no collective view on whether private health insurance was offered and did not collect data on it. — RNZ