Board in disarray as axe poised

Their jobs are on the line, but Waikato DHB members are split on whether their board is dysfunctional.

Some think a commissioner could be the ‘‘circuit breaker’’ they need, or considered resigning before Health Minister David Clark raised the threat.

Others say it’s very collegial, and they’ll stay in the job until they’re told otherwise.

It could be soon – on Tuesday, David Clark told board members he was considering a commissioner, and gave them two weeks to respond.

Clark noted concerns with finances, governance and leadership instability, and ‘‘ongoing performance issues’’.

Board chair Sally Webb – who also leads Bay of Plenty DHB – has already supported installing a commissioner.

She saw it as a way to ensure ‘‘trusted and focused leadership’’ at Waikato DHB, but members were due to thrash out their views at an informal Wednesday evening meeting.

Board member Sally Christie spent two to three months thinking seriously about resigning.

‘‘We need a circuit breaker and I believe that putting a commissioner in is a good option,’’ she said.

The board is dysfunctional, Christie said, because it hasn’t managed to do what it was required to.

She agreed that one of the big, unresolved issues was around the DHB’s challenge to Coroner’s findings on the death of Nicky Stevens – the son of board member Dave Macpherson. Many of her colleagues were coy on this.

Clyde Wade wouldn’t comment when asked if issues such as the coronial challenge had diverted board attention.

Martin Gallagher described collegial relations ‘‘with the exception of one issue which you will be aware of’’’, but wouldn’t explain.

Board members asked about other DHB issues often replied with ‘‘you know the list as well as I do’’, or said they had been well aired in the media.

Wade went further than thinking about resigning – he suggested doing so en masse, then asking the minister to appoint a commissioner.

‘‘I think we were at a stalemate. Not that that’s necessarily accepted by everybody,’’ he said. He finds it gutting that a board which members put a lot of work into had been derailed.

‘‘It’s the public appearance of the board which actually has limited our ability to appoint a chief executive and that’s a big chunk of it,’’ he said.

The deficit must also be tamed.

Yet Mary Anne Gill spoke of a board which got along ‘‘extremely well’’ despite the odd disagreement, and worked hard to reduce health inequities for Ma¯ ori and rural people.

She refuted any claims it was dysfunctional.

‘‘It has not been an easy job, of course, but we have all done it with enthusiasm, good grace, and a collegiality that belies what some others are saying about the board.’’

She will stay in the job until the minister says go, and repeatedly said the problems were a system-wide issue.

‘‘What Waikato DHB has been picked up for, it could quite easily have been any other DHB,’’ she said.

Dave Macpherson rubbished claims the board was dysfunctional, saying members were trying to turn a ship which had been heading in the wrong direction for years.

A commissioner is almost a certainty, he said. Waikato DHB is working on a 10-year financial plan to bring it out of deficit, he said, and would be better served by a senior Ministry of Health official acting as chief executive.

Macpherson stood for the board after his son, Nicky Stevens, died while an inpatient of Waikato DHB’s Henry Rongomau Bennett Centre.

Martin Gallagher was noncommittal about what could come.

‘‘I respect that the minister will make a decision. I’ll stay in my post until such time.’’

Deputy chair Margaret Wilson would only say she agreed with board chair Webb’s comments.

Tania Hodges declined to comment, and Sharon Mariu, Pippa Mahood and Crystal Beavis could not be reached for comment before publishing.