Centralised health system ‘not the prize we want’

National Party health spokesman Dr Shane Reti and East Coast candidate Dana Kirkpatrick in Gladstone Road yesterday. Picture by Liam Clayton

New Zealand needs a devolved health system, with decision-making responsibilities being “as close to the home or hapū as possible”.

That is the view of National Party health spokesman Dr Shane Reti who has been in Gisborne with National’s East Coast candidate Dana Kirkpatrick.

The likely health minister if National wins the election said he was not advocating for a return to the district health boards.

But he wanted decision-making, including for funding, localised or regionalised.

“I fail to believe the health minister can look out of her window in Wellington and tell the people of Tairāwhiti what is good for them.”

Emeritus Professor Des Gorman of Auckland University had said the country had the most centralised health system in the world.

“That is not the prize we want.”

Dr Reti said the party’s policy to re-introduce $5 prescription charges was not a controversial policy, but a fair and equitable one.

A National Government would restrict free medications to superannuitants and community card holders with the savings of $280m to be used for Pharmac funding for 12 cancer treatments.

Dr Reti said the Labour Government believed prescription drugs should be universally free.

“I challenge anyone on the streets of Gisborne to say they believe the wealthiest New Zealanders should get the same relief as the most vulnerable.”

Dr Reti said 135,000 people failed to pick up prescriptions in 2021.

The vast majority of those 135,0000 were among the most vulnerable.

“They will get relief. They need relief; I don’t.”

The money saved would be ringfenced for cancer drugs chosen by the New Zealand Cancer Control Agency. They were already funded in Australia.

Dr Reti said the health workforce was “the common pathway” to resolving the crisis in health.

New Zealand did not have enough people in the health workforce.

Improving wages, salaries, and work and safety conditions were crucial.

Party leader Christopher Luxon had already determined health and education would get more funding with a change of government.

Recruitment was another issue.

A National Government would cover part of nurses’ and midwives’ student loan repayments as part of a five-year bond to remain working in New Zealand.

Qualified nurses from overseas without a job offer would get a six-month temporary visa without a job offer to look for work and to bring their immediate family members with them.

Getting foreign doctors “credentialled” in New Zealand was a difficulty which needed to be overcome.

Dr Reti said the problem was so bad foreign doctors were working around the country as Uber Eats drivers.

The country had to produce more of its own doctors. National would create a third medical school in Hamilton which would have alliances with medical facilities around regional New Zealand aimed at delivering more doctors to rural New Zealand.