Our health system has never been in a worse state and Andrew Little’s billion dollar restructure, which launches tomorrow, will do nothing to fix it, National’s Health spokesperson Dr Shane Reti says.

“While Health Minister Andrew Little has been focused on rearranging the health system in the middle of a pandemic, sick New Zealanders have paid the price.

“Our hospitals are falling apart, doctors and nurses are burnt out, emergency department wait times have blown out, surgeries have been delayed and wait times to see specialists and have scans have increased. None of these are remedied by a bureaucratic restructure.

“This Government cannot achieve anything. Despite being warned by all 20 DHBs a year ago, we are critically short of 4,000 nurses, 1,500 GPs and 1,500 specialists, and all Andrew Little has done is hire 1,000 contractors and consultants to set up his new health bureaucracy. The Government couldn’t even adjust their immigration settings to allow more nurses into New Zealand.

“New Zealanders deserve better. Parents should be able to get their children to the doctor in a timely manner. Patients should not have to wait eight to ten hours in Emergency Departments and should have easy access to specialists and scans, but instead of focusing on that, Andrew Little has been busy rearranging bureaucrats. More money, more bureaucrats, worse outcomes.

“National will focus on outcomes and services, not systems and bureaucracy.”