$3.9b ‘not to plug deficits’

The $3.92 billion cash injection for the country’s district health boards working through coronavirus should be safeguarded against being used to plug deficits, a trade union has warned.

Nearly all the country’s 20 boards are in the red, and last year clocked up a total deficit of more than $1b – a substantial portion of it one-off payments owed to staff from underpaid holiday pay. The $3.92b, roughly a third of all the new spending in this year’s Budget, will be spent over the next four years.

Details of exactly how the funding, which works out to $980 million a year, will be distributed have not yet been released.

The country’s 20 boards were already in ‘‘financial holes’’ because of long-term underfunding, Association of Salaried Medical Specialists chief director Sarah Dalton said.

‘‘There is no dispute it is lots of money, and lots is required,’’ she said of the funding. But whether the money will be enough to address the challenges of Covid-19 will depend on the guidance.

‘‘I guess it will be a ‘devil is in the details’ situation,’’ Dalton said.

‘‘If too much money goes into deficits, if they are not separately funded, [then] we won’t get out of that hole.’’

Ongoing and acute demand was expected to increase as the country headed into winter, with many hospitals running at or more than 100 per cent bed occupancy before Covid-19.

Boards were also facing pending payequity settlements, Dalton said.

Health Minister David Clark has said the money was not for ‘‘business as usual’’ but should go towards the increased costs of a more challenging work environment.

Clark warned boards that the Government still expected them to work on improving their financial performance, and said the funding would not fix the health system overnight.

The government also announced a one-off $282.5m catch-up campaign for planned care and elective surgeries, partly to compensate for the impact of Covid-19.

Clark said that would fund about 153,000 surgeries, procedures, radiology scans and specialist appointments during the next three years.