Health cuts spark nationwide strike and Pacific backlash

A Pacific Public Service Association (PSA) representative says Thursday’s strike also protests plans to cut the Pacific Health Unit, which will silence Pacific voices in health.

The May Day rally will see 5,500 senior doctors walk-out for 24 hours across Aotearoa New Zealand’s public hospitals tomorrow, following an 86 percent Association of Salaried Medical Specialists members’ vote to strike over low pay and chronic staffing shortages.

ASMS executive director Sarah Dalton told RNZ specialists are still pushing for a 12 percent pay rise, despite Te Whatu Ora’s newest package of 9.5 percent for first-year specialists, 6.2 percent for second-years and 3 percent spread over two years for everyone else.

Dalton says it adds up to less than 0.77 percent on average for most members and therefore a real-terms cut with inflation at 2.5 percent.

Speaking to William Terite on Pacific Mornings, the PSA’s outgoing Pacific representative Ulualofaiga Mareko says the walk-out is in response to funding cuts impacting disheartened staff and failing services.

“One of the biggest highlights is that there's also massive impacts to the Pacific,” Mareko says.

“They’re looking at disestablishing the Pacific Health Unit, or minimising the already little voice Pacific has in the health system.

“So having our people turn up to come together as a collective and fight back together will definitely demonstrate that we care about our health system.

“We want to see the improvements needed that we haven't necessarily experienced thus far.”

Watch Ulualofaiga Mareko’s full interview below.

Pay equity gaps already plague Pacific people in Aotearoa, whether in the private or public sector, which Mareko says not only impacts career progression, learning and development, but also food security and housing.

“The struggles are just a bit more than what others would experience.”

“Such struggles include everyone in the same household losing their jobs due to different management proposals which have occurred in the last year,” Mareko says.

“Many of these people have had to cut back and look at alternative avenues to save, such as moving in with family or friends. “

“Pacific people definitely take the village approach, but we are bursting at the seams already in terms of housing and so having these budget cuts continue only worsen the issue.”

In a Facebook post Health Minister Simeon Brown called on the union to return to negotiations, warning the strike will postpone about 4,300 planned treatments and a similar number of radiology procedures, while jeopardising the care of thousands of patients.

Dalton counters patients are already “a sacrificial lamb to our under-staffed health service every single day”, adding senior-doctor vacancies average 12 percent nationwide and rise to 44 percent in some districts.

‘No lolly scramble’

Amid this, Finance Minister Nicola Willis announced on Tuesday morning the Government will halve its operating allowance in May from $2.4b to $1.3b, saying there will be “no lolly scramble”.

She says they aim to reduce national debt and achieve a budget surplus by 2029, emphasising the move as “tough, but necessary”.

Willis told the Hutt Valley Chamber of Commerce on Tuesday the Government is halving its May Budget operating allowance. Photo/Facebook/Nicola Willis MP

Mareko says this decision reflects Willis’s lack of understanding on how the public service is doing on the ground, saying the multiple “cutthroat cuts” to spending has been at the detriment of workers’ well-being.

“Hearing that it's going to be a massive struggle and a potential year of a number of change management proposals, because there isn't any more money, definitely disheartens us as unionists.”