In a health crisis, this Cinderella service is so vital

were 6508 vocationally registered specialists (excluding GPs) in New Zealand (mainly DHBs but also universities and private sector) of whom 169 were public health specialists.

From 2015 to 2018 the total number of specialists increased by 12.9 per cent whereas public health specialists decreased by 4.5 per cent.

Between 2017 and 2018, of the 16 different specialist branches of medicine (excluding general practice), public health specialists were the only branch to experience a reduction.

Is it any surprise then that, despite the superb advice they are providing the Government, this severely depleted specialist workforce is struggling?

Governments and DHBs should have made a genuine commitment to specialist workforce planning and placed greater value on the need for more public health specialists years ago, at least since 2009.

Testing for Covid-19 and contact tracing is essential for the implementation of an effective strategy.

If the health system had invested in the public health specialist workforce then implementation of the strategy would have been much more extensive and earlier. We could have also developed earlier than we did, better knowledge of the extent of those infected by random testing of seemingly well patients.

The Government has done an excellent job by listening to and accepting good advice from public health specialists and others.

Its communication of this advice has been first class. But it is dependent on a skilled and committed workforce that is like a Cinderella who, rather than being invited to a ball, was invited to a crisis.

In the uncertainty of Covid19 one thing is certain: sometime in the next decade the world will be hit by a more vicious member of the coronavirus family.

Let’s ensure that our medical workforce capacity is at a safe level well before then and that public health specialists are no longer its Cinderella.