Venu Menon
Wellington, July 3,2023
“I’m incredibly proud of the $ 4 billion commitment we’ve made to address pay inequity in this largely female workforce who have campaigned for years to have these issues addressed,” Prime Minister Chris Hipkins said.
Hipkins was referring to the historic pay equity settlement in the health sector during his post-Cabinet briefing on Monday.
“More than 30,000 nurses employed by Te Whatu Ora will soon vote on a pay equity rate and a back-pay offer. It’s an historic pay equity settlement and will be the largest in New Zealand history,” the PM added.
Hipkins said the proposed settlement will see a 6.5% increase in pay rates for senior nurses and a 4.5% increase for graduate nurses.
Nurses will also receive lump-sum payments totaling $ 15,000 in back-pay.
This payment is over and above that paid in April 2023 towards “interim pay equity adjustment,” along with a previous lump-sum payment of $ 10,000.
A new graduate nurse’s starting salary has gone up by 40.7%, while the salary for registered nurses at the top of their scale has risen by 49.2%, the PM noted.
The nursing workforce had grown by an additional 830 clinical placements for nursing students. As a result, 130 students will start their nursing studies in the second half of this year, and a further 700 will enroll for training next year.
Hipkins said this initiative “responds to the Nurses Organisation’s Maranga Mai Campaign …. and sits alongside the immigration green list settings that are helping to bring more nurses into the country.”
On the growing wait-lists, Hipkins blamed “the old system” for creating a “postcode lottery when accessing services.”
He said the Minister of Health, Dr Verrall, had made removing that postcode lottery a key priority.
Health Minister Verrall, who accompanied the PM, reiterated her three key priority areas – “winter, workforce, and wait-lists.”
She said former DHBs had “threshold scores for eligibility for cataract surgery that ranged widely from 45 to 61.”
A score of 46 represented mildly reduced vision, while a score of 61 represented poor vision and meant a person could no longer legally drive, the minister explained.
She said the eligibility norm for a cataract operation varied. “In Auckland and Waitemata, for example, you become eligible for a cataract operation at a score of 46, but in Canterbury and the Southern District you need a score of 61.”
Districts will now accept patients for surgery with a maximum score of 46, the minister said.
“The health reforms have allowed us to end this postcode lottery in healthcare when some people got surgery with mild disease, whereas others had to wait until they were legally blind,” Dr Verrall said.
The minister said Te Whatu Ora prioritised $ 118 million to address wait-list issues and standardised healthcare in response to calls from ophthalmologists across the country for a consistent national threshold.
“We will now be able to use and build on this revised cataract surgery thresholds as a model to improve other wait-lists in the future,” the minister added.
Venu Menon is an Indian Newslink reporter based in Wellington
