In the last few days the NZ Government has taken steps to meet with the CDHB Board and protesting health staff to discuss their concerns, alongside the first steps to implement staff and resourcing cuts in the Board’s operations following Board approval of a $56.5 million cut in expenditure this week. Some Board members and CDHB staff are extremely concerned about the expenditure reductions especially against the backdrop of the current Covid-19 pandemic and ongoing challenges in resourcing public health in Canterbury and the rest of NZ.
We feel we cannot add any further comment to our previous articles on this subject recently and until there is further commentary from the parties to these discussions we do not see a need to continue posting on the issues. However we do not believe that the issue fundamentally can be resolved without the Government being prepared to change the policy settings it has articulated to date and have yet to see any admission from the Government that there is anything wrong with their overall policy on health or admission that any particular failure at Government level exists.