If you are bothered about socialism running rampant, the Simpson Health and Disability Report released last month is no consolation, because it is about centralising power.
The report drastically redesigns the health system, ostensibly to provide better healthcare, but actually to shift the power base from the regions to central government.
Imagine Helen Clark hovering over Heather Simpson who is hunched over her keyboard receiving instructions: “Of course they will buy into centralising health. No one will even notice, they are so distracted by poorly performing district health boards and a lack of health services. When they do wake up it will be too late. We will have control.” Cackle, cackle.
But centralising health won’t benefit us because big government only benefits itself. Bureaucrats will flourish, services flounder, the poor will suffer first, as they always do, and then everyone else when the money runs out. It will literally be a fatal mistake.
“Her report, publicly released yesterday after sitting in the Beehive for two months, also proposes that the number of District Health Boards be reduced to between eight and 12 and that their boards be appointed rather than elected.”
There you have it. No power to the people, all power to the government — for three years at least.
Simpson is after Maori support by recommending a separate Maori health entity following the bicultural model foisted on us by the Waitangi Tribunal’s distortion of the treaty from “we are one nation” to a two nation “partnership”.
“To transform Hauora Maori from one of our country’s greatest health risks to one of our greatest achievements, the future health and disability system needs to look, act and work differently to make a positive difference in the lives of iwi, hapu and Maori whanau in Aotearoa New Zealand. “
No, we do not need a separate health system for Maori. Replacing the overloaded system is unnecessary, it just needs more funding and some tweaking to provide better informed and trained district hospital board members along with regular accountability on their services.
If the government were actually concerned about Maori health outcomes, they would have already investigated and reported on what we can do to improve them. Now that would have been money well spent! The reason they haven’t done so is because they don’t actually care about Maori health.
Public health services are only one factor determining health outcomes. I strongly argue that where appropriate, implementing better lifestyle, diet and exercise choices is more beneficial than medical intervention. Of course we need the health system, but it is clogged with people who are sick from making poor choices for themselves and their children and also because health services have not increased with population increases due to migration.
Whangarei MP Dr Shane Reti is National’s newly appointed health spokesman, who spoke to ZB last week.
“When asked whether he supported the recommendation of the Heather Simpson led review of New Zealand’s health and disability system to slash the number of district health boards from 20 to between 8 and 12, he firmly responded definitely Not…. Unfortunately, the massive restructuring proposed by the Simpson review would lead to a much more centralised decision-making system through a new large national health bureaucracy (Health NZ) and a smaller number of mega DHBs.
The process of restructuring would disrupt and distract health professionals because of uncertainty over the future of the services they provide. This uncertainty would destabilise the wider health system for a period of time longer than the around 5 years transition envisaged by Simpson.”
Reti’s view is more effective changes to the health system would be “achieved by smaller rather than mega DHBs that are more likely to be familiar with the populations in the proposed localities.”
Sorry Dr Reti, your excellent idea gets the government heave-ho because it is contrary to their socialist narrative, as is your statement “Top down structural change has never driven quality systems improvement”. If we care about our health systems for Maori, and for everybody else too, the government must be prevented from damaging them with the insidious Simpson report.
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