Will’s Word: Our hospitals cannot run solely on goodwill

I've been one of the lucky ones who have never needed a hospital visit for myself. The last time I saw my GP was back in 2018.

That changed recently when a serious illness floored me and I ended up at Middlemore Hospital's emergency department and spent hours there over several days. The problem wasn't the care; the staff were extraordinary.

Calm, compassionate, professional and humorous. The problem was what they were up against: People waiting in corridors because every bed was full, elderly patients waiting quietly in wheelchairs.

No privacy, no comfort and all of us waiting and waiting because there simply weren't enough doctors, nurses or space to cope. At one point, I spoke to a nurse who told me she and her colleagues were exhausted, overworked and understaffed.

She said it with a smile, not because it was funny, but because sometimes humour is the only way to keep going. That conversation has stayed with me. Hospital staff are holding together a system that's been run down for decades, and it's not one government's fault.

Both Labour and National have presided over years of chronic underinvestment in health. They've shuffled management, promised funding boosts, implemented reforms, but you've got to ask what's actually achieved?

It feels like it's nowhere near what's needed to operate comfortably. We cannot keep running hospitals on goodwill. We need more beds, new hospitals, and better paying conditions so we keep staff and training pipelines that meet demand instead of falling years behind.

Because right now, when someone is lying in a corridor waiting for help, the length of that wait is a direct measure of political failure. If nothing changes, it's only a matter of time before it's you or someone you love in that hallway.

That's Will's Word.

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