DHBs facing $90m national deficit

‘‘Canterbury and Capital and Coast are among the worst but the smaller DHBs like Northland and Wairarapa are also struggling.’’ Labour health spokesman David Clark

A nationwide ‘‘budget blowout’’ of more than $30 million across district health boards is symptomatic of a ‘‘visionless Government’’, says Labour.

But the Government has hit back, hinting Budget 2017 would push health funding to record levels, and current deficits were lower than the $150m nationwide deficit it inherited.

Figures from a recent Treasury Report showed the national deficit creeping to $90m – well overshot of the $59m forecast for the 2016/17 financial year.

Labour’s health spokesman David Clark said health funding ‘‘must grow’’, to avoid further cuts to the sector. ‘‘Instead, this visionless Government seems content to allow death by a 1000 ‘service reductions’ with stretched DHB funding putting further stress on an already stretched health workforce.’’

The report showed 11 health boards running forecast deficits.

‘‘Canterbury and Capital and Coast are among the worst but the smaller DHBs like Northland and Wairarapa are also struggling.

‘‘Northland says it’s having to spend more money with the growth in cancer treatment and the Wairarapa is facing significant cost increases due to mental health,’’ Clark said.

In its report, Treasury pointed to some DHBs ‘‘sweating their assets’’ and underfunding building repairs and maintenance to help balance their books.

Rising hospital expenditure was also a key driver, mainly due to increasing personnel costs.

Capital and Coast was forecasting a $28m deficit at the end of the 2016/17 financial year. Canterbury was facing a $45m deficit $7m more than the $38m shortfall it had budgeted for.

Southern DHB, under the control of a Commissioner, was on track to reduce a budgeted $22m deficit, to $21.9m.

But Treasury said international comparisons showed that at a high level, ‘‘New Zealanders have similar health outcomes to people in other countries and that our health system achieves reasonably good results’’.

‘‘Although there is room for improvement in some areas, including health equity.’’

Health Minister Jonathan Coleman said the Government’s focus had been on improving access to services, and it had delivered on that promise. It would continue in that vein when this year’s Budget is unveiled in just over two weeks.

Coleman was partially backed up by Treasury, which said hospital outputs had increased over time, while hospital productivity which was difficult to measure appeared to be stable after population growth and cost had been factored in.

Financial pressure in the health sector, was ‘‘nothing new’’.

‘‘While I note Treasury’s comments, this Government has reduced deficits and they are still lower than the $150 million deficits inherited from Labour.

‘‘As for Mr Clark’s argument, while Labour increased health funding while they were in Government, the deficits also increased substantially,’’ he said. ●➤ Canterbury DHB’s red rating A4