The declaration is a petition calling on the New Zealand Government to address the quality of the country’s health system and services.
Malcolm Mulholland of Patient Voice Aotearoa (PVA) created the petition last year when the Government cut after-hours primary care services in the small South Island town of Westport, in the Buller District.
For the past couple of weeks, PVA has been undertaking a roadshow, holding public hui with different communities facing a similar situation as Buller. Mulholland wants them to know they are “not alone” and there is a need for heartland communities to unite.
Last week the roadshow reached Napier in the Hawkes Bay where local patients, whānau, nurses and community leaders gathered.
Nayda Heays, a local nurse and representative member on Te Runanga o Aotearoa NZNO, said the people of Napier were dreading recent news from Te Whatu Ora that it planned to cut their 24/7 walk-in medical centre and replace it with a telehealth service like it has in Buller.
Yesterday, the Government announced it would not close the centre, after seeing the high level of anger from the Napier community.
Heays said there would likely be more preventable casualties if the medical centre was flipped into a soley telehealth service. She said her and others would still have their guard up, watching this government despite yesterday’s announcement.
“Some of our kaumātua have told me that they saw the aftermath in their families and the community when the Government closed down Napier Hospital 25 years ago,” Heays said.
‘Those were haunting memories for a lot of kaumātua. They recall many people got hurt, got sicker when that hospital was shut down.’
“A few of our kaumātua believe some of their sick Māori relatives died earlier than they should have because there was no hospital to help them and they couldn’t afford or had no car to get to the hospital in Hastings.
“These people actually need to be seen, in person, by a doctor or nurse. Making a phone or video call isn’t good enough and many of them will not be able to get to the nearest hospital 25km away in Hastings.
“So yes, our community is standing with Buller on this one.”
Napier has a population of about 67,000 people and deserved not only a hospital of its own but “most definitely a 24/7 medical centre at the very least,” Heays said.
“I agree with patients, whānau and our community when they say the Government needs to stop cutting the hell of our communities and get more serious about training and retaining our health-care workforce.”
That sentiment was also shared by other nurses where the Buller roadshow had visited, including, the hui in Wellington City where ED nurse Ryan O’Donnell spoke about what he was seeing on the ground.
“What is the crisis? From a perspective such as mine, a mere nurse on the ground running from trolley to trolley to trolley administering IV morphine to control pain and olanzapine to ease psychosis, it is that people cannot access the health-care they need in primary and secondary services.
“This is not the fault of any service in the community. GPs are seeing their patients as much as they possibly can, and I’m sure they wish they could see them more. District nurses are fighting the uphill battle of never-ending new referrals and updated referrals, meanwhile their staff numbers are dwindling slowly but surely.”
O’Donnell also commented on the third assertion of the Buller Declaration which states that rural, Māori and low-income populations are disproportionately impacted by the crisis.
‘As someone who resembles Pākehā in almost every possible way…I don’t think I’m the one to speak at length about the third assertion other than to say that it is very much visible.’
“I can tell you, that’s exactly what I am seeing in my work – disproportionate morbidity and mortality rates that Māori people face when presenting to the emergency department with a health issue.
“I still don’t make it to many patients as quickly as they or I would like. But the increased number of nurses [in certain spaces] does feel better, and it does feel like part of the solution.
“This is only a microcosm though, this one emergency department where this one metric has improved. District nurses are losing numbers, GPs don’t have the numbers, specialist services don’t have capacity because they don’t have the staff.
“Retaining health-care professionals is one of the key steps to addressing the crisis, but that’s hard to do if those professionals face a crisis every day that demoralises the very reason they got into the profession in the first place – to be able to care for people.”
Lucy McLaren, a primary health nurse and NZNO board member from Greytown who has been attending the roadshow hui, said the news yesterday was good for Napier but that there were some deep underlying issues the Government needed to fix in the health system, starting with shortages in the workforce.
“We keep looking for an equal health system when we actually need an equitable health system,” she said.
“I have two nurses for daughters…they are both talking about moving to Australia in the next 12 to 18 months and I imagine, like my brother who trained as a doctor, they will stay in Australia. The money is better, the work life balance is better, the cost of living is better.”
There needed to be more priority on training, retaining and valuing the health workforce for Aotearoa by the government, McLaren said.
“New Zealand has become a training hub for Australia and the international health market and when the Prime Minister makes incorrect statements about our pay implying we’re greedy, why would you stay why would you stay.”
Over the next two months, the roadshow will be taken to at least 20 other towns throughout the North Island. Check out PVA’s Facebook page for hui dates and locations. PVA plans to present the petition to Parliament in November.
The Buller Declaration asserts:
- Aotearoa New Zealand’s health system is in a state of crisis.
- The Government must act urgently to address that crisis.
- Rural, Māori and low-income populations are disproportionately impacted by the crisis.
- The Government must act urgently to meet its obligations under Te Tiriti o Waitangi and protect Māori health, in consultation with iwi and hapū.
- The Government must allocate additional resources to train, recruit and retain more nurses, doctors and specialists.