Health Chief Farewell Shot: If Our Hospital Was Built On Time We Would Be In Black Numbers

If the Ministry of Health built our hospital on time, we would be in the black.

This is the tough message from the outgoing Canterbury health chief to the government days before his departure.

David Meates terminates as executive director of the Canterbury District Health Board (CDHB) on Friday, four weeks and three days after he abruptly resigned amid tension between senior management and the CDHB board over the deficit of $ 180 million from the organization and how to reduce it.

More senior managers resigned in the days and weeks that followed, totaling seven of the 11 executives. The departures sparked protests from two employees and calls for government intervention. Health Minister Chris Hipkins responded by dispatching CEO Ashley Bloomfield to try to “stabilize” the situation.

READ MORE:
* Jacinda Ardern vows action to stop further collapse of the Canterbury health board
* Call for government intervention in Canterbury Health leadership implosion
* Two more senior resignations at Canterbury DHB, bringing a total to 7 out of 11

Leaked minutes of a barred public board meeting on July 16 later revealed that Hipkins expected the CDHB to break even in two years, and the Health Ministry had wanted the DHB to cut $ 90 million from its deficit. in 12 months, without cutting services.

By turning down interviews since quitting, it seemed Meates would quietly leave. However, on Monday he sent his latest “CEO update” to more than 11,000 employees entitled “Why is the Canterbury DHB running a deficit?”

In it, Meates directly blamed the failed budget on post-earthquake government policies.

He said if the Health Ministry built the new Hagley Hospital building before the 2018 deadline, the CDHB’s finances would be on balance by now. The building delays have cost the CDHB more than $ 60 million, Meates said.

While waiting for the new hospital, the CDHB outsourced surgeries to the private sector at high cost to meet its surgical goals.

Depreciation costs related to the earthquake accounted for another $ 35 million, while insurance and capital related to the earthquake cost another $ 23 million. Meates wrote that Canterbury paid $ 50 million a year more in depreciation charges than other DHBs of similar size.

Meates said recent work from Statistics NZ showed that Canterbury’s population had grown at a faster rate than the national average (1.35% vs. 1.26% annually), but the region’s share of funding based in the population had decreased from 11.1% to 10.73% since 2014. / 15.

He said four external reviews of DHB finances showed that “compared to other DHBs, we are operationally efficient.”

He said the Treasury gave the organization a “B” investor trust in 2019, the highest score among DHBs in that year’s tranche.

The article, complete with data charts and graphs, was in response to “some misinformed comments made in recent weeks,” Meates said.

Meates didn’t say who, but crown monitor Lester Levy recently said Stuff more than 50 percent of the shortfall was due to operational inefficiencies.

“There has probably been less control over spending than there should have been,” Levy said.

In his email, Meates replied: “Our deficit situation has absolutely nothing to do with our financial controls.”

Hipkins said the government has always recognized the impact of the earthquakes and supported the CDHB, even with significant increases in operating funding.

“We do not expect all DHBs to recover immediately after years of underfunding, but it is important that they show that they are moving toward this goal and that they are doing so without cutting services.”

Hipkins said he had received comments from Bloomfield about his visit.

It was clear that there were some strained relationships and serious problems that needed to be resolved, including around the hiring and retention of senior managers.

“I am having ongoing discussions with DHB President Sir John Hansen on how best to address these issues.

“I was encouraged to know that everyone involved wants to find a way forward that puts patients first.”

Minutes from the July 16 meeting show multiple times that Levy criticized the manager’s $ 56 million alternative savings plan and indicated that Hipkins would not approve it.

Meates tried to back off saying that his plan, while challenging, was “real and feasible.”

Earlier in the meeting, CFO Justine White tried to explain that a Ministry proposal to cut $ 90 million had not taken into account salary increases already committed to health unions and service providers.

Gullery said management would be happy to consider a Levy alternative on “what else do they think can be done.”

Medical Director Sue Nightingale, who resigned on August 14, said staff had worked “phenomenal hours to come up with … these cost-saving plans, which make us feel bad anyway.”

“The current atmosphere of confrontation is killing us,” he said.

Nightingale told Levy that it seemed like his agenda was to “fire us all”, but if he did, the problems wouldn’t go away as he was trying to make them do the “impossible”.

Later, Levy stated that he was “not pretending to be incredibly tough,” but rather that his role was to represent the view of the Crown and that he was simply doing his job.

The staff plans an “honor guard” for Meates on Wednesday.

A spokesperson said the Health Ministry “does not offer savings proposals for DHBs.”

“We worked with the DHBs to understand their preliminary plans, including the assumptions made as part of the development of these plans.”