Only some will benefit from Labour’s Winter Health Plan.

Last week, Labour announced a 24-point Winter Health Plan to reduce the burden on hospitals over the next four months.

The Health Minister said the plan
was the single biggest improvement on the frontline under the health reforms.

If this is the single biggest improvement in the frontline under the reforms, then we should be seriously worried.

I think everyone in New Zealand – bar the Health Minister – believes our health system is in crisis.

At the moment, the media is full of stories of people waiting hours and hours in emergency departments for medical attention, including mental health patients waiting up to four days to get help.

This is absolutely no reflection on the hard-working health staff who turn up under-resourced and understaffed day after day to look after unwell New Zealanders. They are doing a magnificent job.

It is simply the result of a Labour Government that decided to reorganise the entire health system during a pandemic and failed to focus on the needs of frontline staff.

Emergency departments will again be at the frontline this winter, and it is hard to see how the Winter Health Plan will make an awful lot of difference.

The Winter Plan is a good idea in principle, but unfortunately, it falls short in many areas.

For example, the plan allows pharmacies to treat minor ailments, like diarrhoea and scabies.

But not at every pharmacy in the country. In fact, 250 are not eligible.

You can imagine the frustration of the ineligible Rotorua pharmacist who contacted me with concerns for his vulnerable population, who will miss out. Why?

This initiative is also not available to every New Zealander – only Māori, Pasifika, under-14s and their whānau and Community Services Card holders.

Why would you not just allow all pharmacies to treat everyone, or even those with Community Services Cards who have minor ailments?

Minor sprains and strains are also common in emergency departments, but these cannot be treated under the Winter Plan, which has no ACC involvement for pharmacies.

A similar payments issue that stopped pharmacies from giving the measles vaccine during the 2019 epidemic has not been figured out yet, with the Minister saying “discussions are under way with the pharmacy sector on payment arrangements”.

The Winter Health Plan also allows for mental health patients to be diverted to a mental health service rather than an emergency department – which would be great, but mental health services are also in short supply despite Labour’s promise to invest up to $1.9 billion into mental health.

So, there are some serious shortcomings in Labour’s Winter Health Plan, not the least of which is: where exactly is the health workforce to do all of this?

National recognises our health system is in crisis and that the health workforce is a key reason.

We have announced the first part of our health workforce policy to deliver more nurses and midwives. We will provide $4,500 after-tax student loan relief for five years after graduation in return for students bonding to the New Zealand health system over that time.

This looks to make nursing more attractive as a career, encourage greater take-up of the student loan cost of living component during learners’ student years and more than halve the average student nurse loan after five years.

I really hope the Winter Plan works, but if it has the same implementation failures as the current health reforms, then it is going to be a very long winter.