Key points:
- Dargaville Hospital in Northland is struggling with staff shortages.
- Health Minister Shane Reti said staffing the hospital has been "challenging for many years", adding the health workforce was a "prime issue" for the Government.
- Labour's Ayesha Verrall said face-to-face care was important to assess emergencies all over the country, including in rural areas.
Health Minister Shane Reti says New Zealand is not the only place struggling with its health workforce, after it was revealed a person went into cardiac arrest at Dargaville Hospital last week with no doctor to attend to them.
A nurse had to be guided by a doctor via a video link. The patient later died - something Health New Zealand says was unrelated to understaffing.
Today, Reti said the health workforce was a "prime issue" for the Government.
"We just don't have enough people in the right place to staff what we need around the health system ... particularly in our rural environments."
He said the Government had put 25 new medical school places in this year's Budget.
"We're bringing out the health workforce plan in about another month or so, actually."
He said that would include "how we can increase health workforce, increase scope of practice, what the role of AI, what the role of telehealth might be, all of those sorts of things".
RNZ has reported a telehealth company has signed up to provide after-hours care at Porirua Hospital due to shortages.
Asked if it was good enough for there to be no regular doctor available in Dargaville - which is an hour southwest of Whangārei - Reti said he'd worked at Dargaville Hospital for nearly six months.
"I know what it's like to cover all of Dagaville over a whole weekend by yourself. I did have a senior on as well so I do understand what that's like."
"Dargaville's been a challenging hospital for many years, actually.
"Look, it's never good to not have a doctor in a hospital. That's reality. You want the best expertise you can have when you turn up to an ED and to a hospital."
Asked when he was going to get doctors to Dargaville Hospital, he said Health New Zealand was working on it.
"They're working on the vacancies that are there and what cover needs to be provided and they're assuring me that they're working really hard."
Reti was asked whether, if he had a heart attack, he would want a doctor to be there.
"If I had a heart attack, I'd want the best care possible. I'd want emergency services to turn up and then I'd want to be taken to the best place in time."
When reporters asked if that would include a doctor, he said he would want "whatever the best care and the best services" were.
"What I'm saying is the best service because initially, it will actually be a paramedic actually ... then the best service after that may well be a doctor, may well be a CCU [Coronary Care Unit], the best service is what they should be provided."
Asked if any of that was currently available to Dargaville residents, Reti said if anyone there had a heart attack "of a certain degree" they "may well have to be transferred to Whangārei".
He said that happened in other smaller centres as well which may not have an intensive care or CCU facility.
Reti also confirmed he had briefed the prime minister ahead of a post-Cabinet press conference that there were 14 layers of management at Health New Zealand. The list of 14 had included the board, the chief executive and, at the bottom layer, patients.
Reti said he received the information from Health New Zealand and stood by it.
"And we went back and double checked it and they confirmed that's what it was, so yes."
When it was put to Reti the list was incorrect as it included patients as a layer of management, Reti said: "What's important is whether the front line think there are more layers or not, and you ask any single person, I'll put to you they'll say yes, there are".
'It's a joke' - Labour
Labour health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall said face-to-face care was important to assess emergencies all over the country, including in rural areas.
"When we had a DHB system, those DHBs were incredibly stressed financially, and often that meant that they had only been able to pay doctors at quite a low rate or the minimum, whereas urban hospitals could often pay more.
"So the work that Te Whatu Ora (Health New Zealand) had underway while we were in government was to be able to address that inequality, end the postcode lottery, and help rural hospitals recruit more doctors.
"It's not clear to me that that work continues to be underway."
She said the Government's repeated contention there was no health hiring freeze was "not true".
"We hear from around the country that hospitals are not able to fill their vacancies."
Verrall said Reti standing by the idea that patients were a level of management at Health New Zealand was "ridiculous".
"[The Government is] counting the patient, the board - which has now been fired - the chief of staff of the executive.
"[Reti] has made a mistake - why can't he come clean and own it?"
She said the information had been used last Monday to justify over a billion dollars of healthcare costs so it was "tremendously important that what the minister says can be held up to be true".
"And yet he seems to have struggled to be able to be clear on this point.
"It's an absolute joke."
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