Doctors call for overhaul of how public healthcare provided

A prominent doctor says decisions about public healthcare should be made in the communities they serve.

A group of doctors, academics and policy experts has written an opinion piece in NZ Doctor magazine this week calling for an overhaul of how public healthcare is provided.

Surgeon Dr Phil Bagshaw, who opened a charity hospital in Christchurch in 2007, is one of the group.

He told RNZ's Morning Report New Zealand's health system was heading towards privatisation and centralisation, and needed a change of direction.

"If we really hand it to the locals, and we get the people who know about health controlling it... I have complete confidence in these people. I think they can make it work."

This kind of network was tried in New Zealand once before, Bagshaw said.

"When we had the Pae Ora Health Futures Act in 2022... in the West Coast of the South Island, they tried to get all of the community representatives together... that was working fairly well and then of course the current government came along and shut it down. "

Health Minister Simeon Brown said earlier this year that health decision-making would be shifted closer to patients, communities and hospitals, starting from 1 July.

"Regions and districts will have clearer authority over workforce, resources, and service delivery, while national leadership focuses on strategy, standards and system planning," Brown said.

Bagshaw said he didn't support the direction the minister was moving in. "He's talking about a system that will increasingly use the private sector to provide healthcare, and in doing so it will actually take resources away from the public health system."

He believed that direction meant New Zealand was moving closer to a health system like the US, "where you have an almost totally privatised healthcare system which is the most inefficient and the most expensive in the world".