Surgeon has swipe at DHBs

By MARTIN JOHNSTON and NZPA


The Government is under pressure to relax controls on district health boards after a leading surgeon said they were undemocratic and should be scrapped.

"This is a dysfunctional system," said Associate Professor Philip Bagshaw, a general surgeon and elected member of the Canterbury board. "To make the local boards work they have to become democratic, which they aren't now."

He said his nearly three years on the board had been a waste of time. "I really only stayed on because of my responsibility to those who elected me, otherwise I would have left years ago."

Health boards had proved to be "merely window dressing", with decisions made centrally by the Health Ministry.

Green Party health spokeswoman Sue Kedgley said elected members had been muzzled and the main role of district health boards (DHBs) was as "scapegoats when things go wrong".

If they were to be democratic and effective, the Government needed to give them greater autonomy and financial independence.

Seven members of each of the 21 boards are publicly elected and the elections will be held next month. Health Minister Annette King appoints up to four more members and decides who will be the chairmen or chairwomen and their deputies.

The boards are legally accountable to the minister, unlike councils, whose members are accountable to voters.

Professor Bagshaw is echoing views expressed by several other board members nationally - and reinforced by Government-commissioned research - about the relative powerlessness of DHBs.

Former squash star Dame Susan Devoy expressed the same concern when she quit her elected spot on the Auckland board.

But Ms King said the fact that 75 per cent of existing board members were seeking re-election was a vote of confidence in the system.

"Boards are open to the media and community and are run democratically - a vast change from the secrecy of the 1990s."

Health hopefuls

* More than 500 people are seeking election to the country's 21 district health boards.

* DHBs had between 13 and 41 nominations for the seven elected positions on each board.

* 75 per cent of existing board members are seeking re-election.

* Elections would be held using the single transferable vote system, in which voters rank their desired candidates in order of preference.