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2:03 pm, January 29th, 2026 - 9 comments
Categories: health, health and safety, national, same old national, simeon brown -
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The economic geniuses in charge think that they can run budgets better. They criticised the last Government for spending too much and thought that they could achieve superior results on smaller budgets.
Like in Health.
Last year they slashed a third of roles in Health IT despite union warnings that this would affect the resilience of the system.
From Radio New Zealand in April 2025:
Before cuts began, there were more than 2000 data and digital roles at Health NZ/Te Whatu Ora.
The agency’s acting chief information technology officer Sonny Taite said 1460 had been retained. That was 175 more than the initial proposal after negotiations with the PSA union.
PSA head Fleur Fitzsimons said patient safety and the security of sensitive health information was still at risk.
“These cuts are dangerous – they threaten patient care and ignore the risks of sensitive patient information falling prey to cyber-attacks,” she said.
But Taite said the changes would help the agency be more efficient and sustainable.
“The new operating model will see a nationally led digital services team, coordinated regionally, with local delivery supporting clinicians and patients at the front-line,” he said.
A massive IT outage at hospitals in Auckland and Northland is being blamed on cuts to Health NZ’s digital team, by a union representing public service workers.
The Public Service Association (PSA), said its members were forced to use pen and paper during a computer systems outage lasting more than twelve hours from Wednesday night to Thursday morning.
It said the outage had prevented clinicians from accessing patient information, and blocked communications.
It comes less than a month after online portal Manage My Health was hacked and patient data held ransom.
“The government has to take the blame for this – these failures are a direct result of its short-sighted decision to underfund and cut roles at Health NZ’s digital services team,” PSA national secretary Fleur Fitzsimons said.
“The government oversaw the loss of the very experts who maintain and upgrade these critical systems, and now we’re seeing the predictable consequences – hospitals forced onto whiteboards and paper forms while trying to deliver modern healthcare.”
Fitzsimons called for the government to immediately review funding for digital health services and “admit its mistakes in cutting digital services expertise.”
Simeon Brown and Christopher Luxon will not doubt claim this was a management decision and regurgitate previously parrotted lines about how the health budget is bigger now than ever before.
While it may be so is population numbers, the effect of inflation on spending power and the increasing need of an ageing population.
While they could claim that the My Health hack was not their fault because it involved a private company this current disaster is a direct effect of their action.
They need to be take full blame for this. I bet they don’t.
Update: Looks like Southern Hospitals look like they have been repeatedly hit with similar problems. And Hutt Hospital’s payroll system went down causing nurses not to be paid and a further incident affected clinical staff and medical specialists union said crumbling technology systems were putting both staff and patients at risk.
The Right Wing Magical Efficiency Tree in action. Muppets.
Experts that are no longer available as a direct result of their policies.
The thin end of a very large wedge in health when you factor in their trashing of the budgeted new builds and refurbs.
They've kicked the shit out of health and need to own it bigtime. Urgent imaging waits is 3rd world shit.
Well, anything that makes "Public Health" look bad helps CoC's agenda of Private Health Providers and Health Insurance rort.
In a decades time the consequences of their decision-making as to “amalgamating” Crown Research Institutes will be also become a known.
They lost a lot of staff.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/565614/six-crown-research-institutes-merge-into-public-research-organisations
More focus on the staff loss
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/business/578216/callaghan-innovation-redundancies-cost-taxpayers-more-than-10m-report
Simeon B blaming the previous government on this outage. Complete BS, the IT systems were working the days and weeks before this outage. Jeez we are going to get tired of these diversion tactics for another year.
"thunk"? "thunk"?
There is a definition of "thunk" that says "A thunk is a loud, deep sound, like the thunk your head makes against your desk when you fall asleep in English class. Again.". The informal, imitative thunk is a good word for the hollow thudding sound of something heavy making a dull impact.
Erica Stanford's proposed amendments to the literacy curriculum are clearly essential. Remedial English lessons for that man and a dictionary for him to read.
The rest of the post makes a lot of sense though.
https://www.oed.com/dictionary/thunk_v2?tl=true
The three things were connected in a TV series “Plum” about a concussion prone ageing Ozzie rugby league player Peter Lum who has conversations with Sylvia Plath.
Yep use was meant to be jarring.