Value on New Zealanders’ health
urgent conditions whose treatment is deferred because hospitals are too full and they do not meet treatment thresholds. A number of these people experience significant pain and reduced quality of life while they wait for care. Another way to describe unmet need is health rationing.
The Government is now faced with the task of addressing unmet need plus current need as well as increasing the health system capacity to meet future shocks – all while rebuilding the economy with less tax revenue. This is a tricky equation to solve, and one that needs flexible thinking.
We need a policy mind-shift, from perceiving the health spend as a drain on the economy, to recognising that it is part and parcel of achieving economic growth as well as our people’s health.
Investment in health services creates jobs and income, directly and indirectly. Hospitals are among the biggest employers in the regions, and staff income generates wider regional employment.
Treat the people who are waiting months and years for surgery, get them healthy and they will also be better able to contribute to our economic recovery.
Last year an ASMS-CTU health budget analysis conservatively estimated that a decade of health funding shortfalls meant this year’s budget would need more than $2.5 billion extra just to restore the value of funding to the 2009/10 levels. And those levels were far from ideal.
The Covid crisis has exposed many shortcomings, particularly in our public health capacity and the government has already announced extra resources for public health units and to boost ICU capacity.
But if we are serious about rebuilding our health system, we need additional operational funding of $1b in this year’s Budget, along with an indication that the accumulated shortfall will be addressed over the next four years.
Putting the numbers aside, what we really need to see are better conversations about how we are going to manage this massive health need, both now and in the future.
Part of this is meeting current demand with current workforce, but part of it is looking at training, succession-planning, access to balanced, manageable workloads for frontline health workers, and management of existing patient backlogs.
Investing in health takes longer than one electoral cycle. So, let’s remember something else we’ve learned from lockdown – be kind to current us and future us – let’s agree that timely, affordable access to healthcare is important to our country. Let’s invest in a shared vision for our health system, embodied in a multi-party political accord. Only this level of commitment, investment, and planning, will help us all to get well and stay well — soon.
Pre-Covid, hospitals were already on the edge. We have medical workforce shortages and not enough acute hospital beds.