A Public Service Association health worker survey shows the Government is failing to keep its promise that cuts won’t affect frontline services.
Of the 1,287 union health workers surveyed, 81% say restructuring and cuts negatively impact their work, 86% say healthcare is now harder to access, 72% say their field is underfunded, and 84% want funding cuts to stop.
PSA National Secretary Fleur Fitzsimons says categorizing frontline and backroom health workers separately is wrong, as all healthcare workers are essential to the system.
She challenges the Government to prove its policy by showing the public what’s happening with the hiring process.
“Tell the New Zealand public that there’s no hiring freeze, and any impression that there is should be removed, and that any hiring and any vacancy should be replaced, because what we would then see is a lift in our health workforce, and we would see these workers in our health system who say they can’t replace their colleagues, replacing them,” says Fitzsimons.
Fleur Fitzsimons says clinicians are being overstretched, and this puts the health and safety of New Zealanders at risk.
