268 more jobs axed from Health NZ
The Public Service Association says “savage” cuts to 268 roles in Health New Zealand — Te Whatu Ora’s commissioning team will be felt for years to come.
Staff were told yesterday that 126 roles will be disestablished, and a further 142 vacant roles will go unfilled, bringing the total number of roles to be disestablished to 268.
Te Whatu Ora had 1004 staff in commissioning when it was formed.
That fell to 756 in the first round of restructuring, and now it’s 482.
PSA national health-sector lead Ashok Shankar said this was the team that funded, monitored and commissioned health-based services, including the management of thousands of contracts in the sector.
On of the commissioning team, who RNZ agreed not to name, said it was a tough time. “We are all feeling weary after all of the changes we’ve been through in the past two years.”
Shankar said workers were feeling “shell-shocked” over the “savage” cuts, which would certainly result in the cutting of services.
The distinction between frontline and backline was “a political creation to make the community feel that there’s all of these unessential people out there being paid for doing nothing”, he said. “There isn’t a frontline and a backline, it is a team, and the team delivers healthcare.
“You don’t have people in the backline who aren’t essential.
“Without them, the clinicians on the frontline are not going to be able to do their work.”
A Te Whatu Ora spokesperson said said it was continuing work “to ensure we live within our budget and focus on providing New Zealanders with easier and faster access to healthcare”. Other than some leadership changes, it said, there was no formal change process at this stage for commissioning.