This article was first published by RNZ
The appointment of the only remaining member of the Health NZ as Deputy Commissioner makes a farce of the decision to bring in Commissioners, Labour says.
Health NZ Commissioner Lester Levy, who took on that role after less than eight weeks as board chair, on Friday announced the appointments of Roger Jarrold and Ken Whelan as his deputy commissioners.
Jarrold had been the only person who remained on the board other than Levy by the time the government announced Levy would be brought in as a Commissioner, having been appointed in March. Whelan had been brought into the organisation in December as a Crown Observer.
Health Minister Shane Reti, asked about what had changed if it was the same people in place, argued it was about distance from the frontline and speed of decision-making.
“So as commissioner, obviously, the pathway is quite short to him as opposed to a board. So a board would need to bring together everyone, obviously, on the board, and that can take time,” he said.
“It’s a shorter path to decision-making, but fundamentally he has all the powers under the legislation that the previous board did ... their agility and ability to move quickly, because they don’t need to go into board meetings, they can just make those decisions themselves amongst other things.”
He denied the move to bring in Levy as a Commissioner instead of being board chair was a way of avoiding having to appoint more board members.
“Oh, no, not at all ... there’s been commissioners at DHB level for a long period of time so no, it’s a standard process when you’re really squeezed and things are getting quite, quite challenging. It’s a very serious step to take, and we needed to pull that trigger.”
Labour leader Chris Hipkins took a dismissive view of that.
“I think it makes a farce of the notion that they sacked the board, given that the only remaining people who were on the board at the time they supposedly sacked them still seem to be there. Everybody else had already resigned.
“I think it just shows that, again, this was part of a manufactured crisis on the part of the government.”
Labour’s Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall said she had respect for the Commissioner and his deputies, but replacing the board with a Commissioner was the wrong call.
“It puts too much focus and power in in one individual,” she said. “I think going to three individuals is not much of an improvement.”
She thought the case for bringing in a Commissioner had not been clearly laid out to the public, she said.
“Just about every claim they made two weeks ago when they announced their change to the governance structure at Health New Zealand has been proven to be untrue,” she said.
“Their claims about the amount of management has been shown to be untrue. The timeline of events with the board - I’m aware of reporting about when Dr Reti said he had concerns, just five days prior to that, he had said he didn’t have concerns.”
“I think that a lot about the government story doesn’t hold up. Fundamentally, the one thing that is true is that the government is cutting $1.4 billion out of the health system, and we’re seeing that impact.”
By Russell Palmer of RNZ