Kerre Woodham: Immediate healthcare shortages? We had them three years ago

We've all seen it.

The strain on the health system has become unendurable for so many health professionals, who have given far more than should ever have been asked of them.

Some of them have been working quite frankly illegal hours covering for sick and absent colleagues doing jobs they were never meant to do, because there is nowhere else for people with diverse needs to go.

They are every day dealing with frightened, angry people, who are being let down by a hospital system and the health system beyond the hospitals, that's only being propped up by the sacrifices of those at the coalface.

Bring more people in they have begged. We need more health professionals.

Every single individual health professional group has been screaming for support and the Government has dragged its heels, for whatever reasons, it has dragged its heels.

Eventually, begrudgingly, the Government established the Green List in July of last year, which provided pathways to residency, either immediately or after two year for 85 professions identified being most in need.

But nurses were excluded, initially, from immediate residency, along with many other professions deemed to be in demand worldwide.

To be fair, both the Health Minister at the time, Andrew Little, and his associate, now Health Minister Dr Ayesha Verrell, fought for nurses to be included on the immediate residency pathway. But for reasons of their own, immigration and the Government denied that request.  

The Health Minister Dr Ayesha Verrall said New Zealand needed to look abroad as well as locally to fill the health sector's worker shortage.  She says we have immediate shortages we need to address.

No, Dr Verrall, we had them two years ago. We had them three years ago, we've had them for ages.

You hear Andrew Little say everything's fine. You know, we've got nurses at nursing school. We've got more doctors than ever before at our Med schools. The doctors say we would like to open another Med school. Oh, no, no, no, no.

When we say we want them local, we don't want them local enough that we open another Med school. Everything's fine, except it's not because slowly, eventually, gradually, even the Government comes to realise that everything is not fine.

And so they make the changes that were asked of them by so many professional groups, so many years ago. And it's almost too late.

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