Already an estimated tens of thousands have signed, since the petition launched as the Buller Declaration on the West Coast in October 2024 after the district lost its after-hours medical clinic and endured recurring hospital closures due to lack of staffing.
Since then, founder Malcolm Muholland, chair of advocacy group Patient Voice Aotearoa, has been travelling around New Zealand, hearing people’s experiences of their local health services and collecting signatures on the declaration.
‘The Prime Minister needs to help aged care out because one day he will be in a rest home and he will know how hard it is.’
Now online, the Patient Voice Aotearoa petition is calling on the Government to:
- Fix the health crisis.
- Address disparities for Māori, rural and low-income communities.
- Allocate enough resources to train, recruit and retain more nurses, doctors, specialists, midwives, health-care assistants and other health workers.
- Meet its obligations under Te Tiriti o Waitangi and protect Māori health, in consultation with iwi and hapu.
Wellington nurse Emma Allen said she signed as she believed it was “so important” to have a health system that was safe for workers and patients.
‘The truth is our patients would have better outcomes if the health-care system wasn’t stretched so thin.’
“I don’t want them to ever be at risk because of a health system which is so strained,” she told Kaitiaki. “It is heartbreaking to be unable to provide the care our patients need and deserve all of the time due to lack of resources and staff.”
Hospital colleagues were keen to sign as everyone felt the same way, said Allen, an NZNO delegate. “We all just want the best for our patients and colleagues.”
“The truth is our patients would have better outcomes if the health-care system wasn’t stretched so thin.”
Health-care assistant (HCA) Janeth Barrogo said she signed so the Government would understand that in aged care the workload was getting too much.
‘We need to be heard’
“I think we need to be heard by the Government that it’s getting harder and harder and there’s not a lot of staff.”
These days, the needs of residents were more complex than before, yet nurse-to-patient ratios were not as high as in Australia and not safe, Barrogo said.
“The Prime Minister needs to help aged care out because one day he will be in a rest home and he will know how hard it is.”
Even the manager of Barrogo’s aged-care facility — which Kaitiaki has chosen not to name — said it was “good to see Janeth advocating for her colleagues”.
NZNO has been a keen supporter of the Buller Declaration in its bid for more health funding, particularly in provincial areas and for Māori.
During mass 24-hour strike action on July 30, members collected another 1400 signatures to add to the 20,000-strong petition at last count.
Both the hand-signed Buller Declaration and petition will merge and be presented to Parliament on November 18.
‘Let’s show our support’
Former NZNO campaigns advisor, Lyndy McIntyre, who is helping to coordinate the petition, said she hoped nurses and kaiāwhina would share and support the petition.
“We know that the public supports this — what we need to do is show our support too,” McIntyre said.
“People around New Zealand know the system is broken and they want to fix it — and one of the fixes is to have enough workforce.”
“It’s not just about Buller, it’s about everywhere in New Zealand.”
Sarah Dalton, executive director of the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists (ASMS), said doctors were also busy signing.
“There’s quite a bit of effort going into stopping our members from talking publicly about the problems in our health system. This petition is a great way to bring health professionals and the wider public together – to show and share our concerns.”
The latest push comes a day after NZNO Te Whatu Ora members voted strongly for further strike action in September — hot on the heels of a 24-hour nationwide strike.
Te Whatu Ora members at Christchurch Hospital’s theatre, post-anaesthetic care unit and radiology services are also taking their own local two-hour strike action tomorrow from 2-4pm over ongoing staff shortages.
Local actions are also planned at Whangārei Hospital and Auckland Hospital this month.
Mulholland’s late wife Wiki died from breast cancer in 2021, after a struggle to access potentially life-prolonging but unfunded drugs.
