There is nothing wrong with our Health Care Services that a revision of our Immigration policy wouldn't fix with a stroke of a pen.
Governments have had the wherewithal to solve the problem for decades and very little of it is about money.
Readers will know that we live on the remote East Coast of the North Island yet enjoy one of the best run Health Care Services in the world, let alone New Zealand.
It just so happens that I can see a doctor or nurse practitioner within hours of making a phone call.
Yet just down the road, in Gisborne, my wife who is a patient at one of the local clinics, may have to wait three weeks just to get an appointment.
It would appear that Gisborne's problems are, like many other parts of the country, related to Doctor and nurse shortages that could be fixed at the border.
I have no problem with Nurses and Doctors striking for more money - in most instances their claims of being over worked and underpaid are justified and, as a result are migrating to Australia in record numbers where the conditions of employment are so much better.
However, paying the doctors and nurses more money will do little to solve the Healthcare worker shortages - particularly in rural parts of the country.
The answer is to require foreign Healthcare workers applying for permanent residency to be bonded for at least 3 years, and by doing so, agree to be sent to the hospitals and clinics that have staff shortages of people with their qualifications.
And it would come as no surprise that foreign immigrants applying for permanent residency would see this requirement as of little consequence in their journey of resettleing in a country that offers so much more than the place they left behind
For them, this country really is Godzone.
During the Christmas break our family spent 8 days at Ohope and unfortunately but thankfully witnessed a time spent by my wife in Whakatane hospital where she nearly died.
It was a chance to observe the critical care workers - most of Asian or South Pacific highly trained origin operating in a professional capacity beyond compare.
They saved my wife's life!
This cross section of nationalities happily working in our hospitals and rural clinics is a reason why the problem of Health care worker shortages should be one where the answer lies with Government immigration policy - it shouldn't be about low salaries.
So, why the reluctance to make my suggestion part of government policy.
There has to be a reason and my guess is that it is politically motivated.
It isn't hard to see that any policy solving the health care worker shortages would take away the homegrown and educated workers' ability to back their claims for higher wages on stress due to overwork.
Come on Government - this is a policy change that involves little money but would benefit politically anybody who advocated making the change.
I thought politics was all about doing the possible.
What has taken you so long?
Clive Bibby is a commentator, consultant, farmer and community leader, who lives in Tolaga Bay.
9 comments:
I am not convinced that any doctor accustomed to being surrounded by industrious respective millions would fancy the risk of being sent to Murapara or Taumaranui.
Last year the PSA asked the Privacy Commissioner to investigate the impact of cuts to Health NZ’s digital services workforce but he refused. Hmm.
I do not share Clive's apparent enthusiasm with regard to filling our health care vacancies with foreigners, many of them Third Worlders. As the NHS experience shows, a health service like that has many communication problems, not least of which is the lack of empathy between carer and patient, and may find itself lumbered with characters who, while possessing recognised qualifications, are borderline (or less) competent.
There is also something just a bit objectionable about the NZ taxpayer financing expensive medical degree programmes only to see the graduates heading for lucrative jobs overseas while what should be their jobs here are being filled with outsiders many of whom are rather ho-hum.
I would be looking at bonding taxpayer-financed graduates rather than, or as well as, overseas imports, with incentive payments for spending time in poorly serviced areas.
Ultimately, it comes down to better incomes for medics, particularly medical specialists who can earn double what they get here and with no, or low, income tax in e.g. the Emirates. Perhaps we should look harder at the public/private partnership model here.
Barend
You appear ignorant of the excellent highly qualified, - proffesional services provided by immigrant health care workers who would happily work at the most remote clinics in the country simply as a condition of gaining permanent residency.
Furthermore, it is no surprise to find many of the specialists overseeing the country's premier surgical units are immigrants who work here because of the lifestyle and opportunities available to family members. They could double their salaries by moving to Australia but they don't because, for them, it isn,'t about the money.
You obviously need to spend time under their care Barend - but at least we agree about the bonding option.
Give the Minister of Health a ring and ask him why he hasn't implimented the policy.
If he's honest, he will tell you that the salaried Heath Workers Union is too powerful and would oppose any move to reduce their bargaining power.
However, l agree that all home grown graduates should be bonded as well.
Emirates is hardly a valid comparison. It is not the public/private partnership model tha is helping them, it is the oil model. New Zealand has nowhere near the size of economy of that nation…plus we have employment laws, although ACT are doing their best to change that!
Clive, you present a case based entirely on subjective perceptions and inferences drawn from those, whereas I can cite hard evidence (including judicial findings) from the UK for the statements I made. You are assuming that if I was under the care of an immigrant physician and s/he was competent that I would automatically generalise that to all medical immigrants as you seem to have done, but I don't operate at that level. My contention remains that there is something systemically awry with a publicly financed training system that produces quality graduates for lucrative overseas destinations while importing personnel who exhibit a range of levels of competence and ability to relate to NZ patients.
Anon 1125, I did not make any connection between the Emirates and the public/private partnership model. I used the Emirates as an example of a high-paying destination for medics trained by the NZ taxpayer.
Ultimately it all hinges on GDP per capita.
Fiji also struggles and as we continue slide more closely their economic performance so will all the services demanded.
Oh really Barend!
My comments are all based on multiple visits to Waikato Central Regional Base Hospital which is home to NZ's premier cardiac unit plus a number of rural community support facilities like Tairawhiti and Whakatane.
Given my wife and l both present with chronic illnesses, we are well placed to speak authoratively about both the nature and quality of the services available througout the region which l believe is fairly representative of New Zealand
as a whole.
It is insulting to suggest our experiences and testimony are based on pure supposition.
We talk about the real world and base our recomrndations for change on existing failures of an expensive taxpayer funded system that is by and large pretty damned good.
There is no question that there are improvements that could be made but maligning the well qualified immigrants who have replaced our home grown departed doctors and nurses isn't one of them. I'm willing to bet the house that you would change your negative view of NZ's health care workers if you happened to be in a position where they just might save your life.
I'm glad you had such a positive experience, Clive, but I go on hard data, not subjective evaluations of situations that may not be representative at all - again, need hard data arrived at by rigorous sampling techniques to determine that.
I didn't malign anyone - you do seem to have problems operating at the abstract intellectual level.
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