Funding cutback hits public health

Dr Julia Peters. Photo / Martin Sykes

A review of last year's swine flu pandemic has found flaws in the response of Auckland's public health unit, which is shedding jobs because of Government funding cuts.

The Auckland Regional Public Health Service is losing 7 per cent of its funding and 12 per cent of its fulltime-equivalent staffing.

The Public Health Association's national executive officer, Gay Keating, said similar cuts to public health units were occurring around the country.

They would lead to more people having costly hospital stays for conditions that could have been managed in the community.

The Health Ministry, which funds the bulk of public health services provided by district health boards, has already cut its public health budget more than 10 per cent, to around $60 million.

Auckland is likely to lose the family violence reduction scheme and the oral health promotion scheme.

Auckland Public Health will close its Henderson and Manukau offices, and operate solely from its head office at the former National Women's Hospital building in Greenlane.

But the cuts are less severe than proposed in a restructuring document obtained by the Herald.

It shows Auckland Public Health's funding was going to be slashed by 16 per cent, from around $15 million a year, and staffing cut by the same percentage.

The Auckland DHB's restructuring document, marked "confidential", says Auckland Public Health's top priority is its regulatory work.

The document proposed "reductions in the areas of senior management, health promotion, policy, information and infrastructure".

It also says the review of the service's pandemic response showed the service needed "to develop greater organisational agility".

Staff feedback on the restructuring proposal indicates poor communication between staff has been a problem for the service and this might affect a future pandemic response.

"The staff concerns reflect the risks of not being able to plan effectively for another pandemic, ie, second wave of swine flu, and burning out staff, if fundamental elements, such as clear communication are not consistently practised," it says.

The service's clinical director, Dr Julia Peters, said yesterday the pandemic response review was one of the reasons for undertaking the restructuring and the changes should help to improve the organisation's agility.

It implemented the review's recommendation to establish a dedicated emergency management response team.

"We've had an emergency planner and we had a pandemic planner. We had other positions in the organisation that contributed to that work but they weren't all grouped in one team."

Dr Peters said management had been slimmed down by the restructuring, but the cuts in health promotion were much less than planned.

"... given that the cuts aren't as severe as we anticipated, I think the population of Auckland can be pretty well assured that we will be providing as good and comprehensive service as previously, if not better."

The Numbers:

* Staff numbers before - 177 fulltime-equivalent staff.

* After - 155.

* Funding - down 7 per cent.