The health system and the people in it should be looked at as "an investment in each other rather than a cost”, the chief executive of the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists, Sarah Dalton, says.
It comes as New Zealand's health workforce continues to buckle under the strain of staffing pressures and a lack of pay, with not-for-profit organisation Plunket being forced to sell off some of its properties and cut programmes to make ends meet.
The College of Midwives filed a class action lawsuit in the High Court against the Ministry of Health on Wednesday over concerns around a lack of pay and support.
Claire MacDonald from the New Zealand College of Midwives told Breakfast the “issue has been long-standing”.
“We’re not just starting this now. We’ve been talking about the problems that have been going on in widwifery for over a decade,” she said.
“What we’re asking for is for fair pay and reasonable working conditions for midwives and we’re asking for an organisation that will actually help the structural support for community widwives because those things aren’t there at the moment and what we’re seeing, as a result, is attrition.
“People are tired. Midwives are tired at the moment. We just need to make sure that they’re supported to do the work that they really want to be doing.”
READ MORE: Over 1300 midwives taking MoH to court over pay, support
MacDonald said community-based midwives – who provide care in the community and access hospitals and birthing units when people go into labour – have been working with an “outdated contract model” which had last been renewed in 2007.
“It’s not fit for purpose in the current situation so we have 24-hour, on-call – which is, of course, the role of the midwife – but we also have a whole lot of administrative things that we need to be doing and those administrative issues, they’re not supported.
“Midwives do everything themselves. They’re individually contracted to the Ministry of Health and when there’s not very many of them out on the ground, they’re just doing more work because midwives want whānau to receive the care that they need so they’re stretched.
“They’re just stretching themselves further and further.”
MacDonald said the group is calling for an “updated, fit for purpose contract”, fair pay for community-based midwives and investment in support systems around community-based midwives.
“All we want is for midwives to be able to do midwifery and for other things to be done by the people who do them well.”
READ MORE: Midwives warn their profession on a knife-edge
She said there have been multiple settlements with the Ministry of Health since the group first took the ministry to court in 2015 which can be “slotted into place tomorrow”.
“I think a big part of what we need to see is Government actually listening and implementing those solutions. Nobody’s been sitting on their laurels and just expecting something to be magicked out of thin air. We do know what needs to happen, and so does the Ministry of Health and so does the Government.”
Te Whatu Ora, the new national Health body told RNZ yesterday that the Government had invested significantly in midwifery in recent years.
There are hundreds of vacancies in the profession. (Source: 1News)
'Staring down the barrel of more real wage cuts'
The chief executive of the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists (doctors and dentists union), Sarah Dalton, said while there are “some positive signs” from the newly formed Health NZ and their plans to reform the health sector, they have “only been going for a couple of months”.
“The DHB system made a virtue of, in the first place, slight under-staffing and so over the years, that’s had an accumulative effect which has dug us into the hole we’re in now,” she said.
Dalton called for the Government to “reconfigure looking at our health system and the people in it as an investment – an investment in each other – rather than a cost”.
“If we don’t get that part right, doesn’t matter what system we’ve put across health – we’re never going to get there,” she said.
A lack of funding is also a major concern, with projects halted and “penny pinching” around the winter incentive payments, adding that most of the health workforce is "subsidising the ongoing functioning of our health system with their free labour".
Dalton said our health workforce has "seen us through what could have been a horrific experience” and “in the middle of that, the Government chose to put public sector pay restraints in place”.
“We are staring down the barrel of more real wage cuts for our health workers.”
While bringing in more staff from overseas is expected to ease some of the current pressures, Dalton said for staff already working in the system, the pay restraint model is "causing real pain and real anger across the health workforce”.
Despite her concerns, Dalton said she has “some optimism” for the future of the workforce.
“The leadership of Health New Zealand are making some commitments that, if they’re able to follow through on, will make positive change in our system.
“I guess we need to keep pushing hard and we also need to give them a little bit of a chance to make good on the dialogue.”
In early July when Health NZ launched chair Rob Campbell said: "Getting enough staff into the right place, able to work in the right ways, motivated the right way, feeling good about themselves and about the work they do in the system, that's the priority."
He said health staff in New Zealand are skilled and dedicated but structures in which they can work effectively need to be created.
"If we can do that then the system will turn around," he said.
Campbell also said New Zealand is competing with other countries who have more money for skilled health professionals.
"Frankly we can't compete just with the money, with the best payer anywhere in the world."
"What we have to do is make sure we are training and preparing and employing enough people generated here or through migrant schemes to meet the tasks that we have now."
SHARE ME