'Backroom' staff keep health ticking over

OPINION: The Health Ministry has shed 200 jobs and is planning to cut another 150 by mid-2011. Health Minister Tony Ryall says cutting administrative jobs allows more doctors and nurses to be employed on the front line.

However, the value of that is questionable when those same doctors and nurses are increasingly burdened with people becoming unnecessarily ill.

We absolutely need the doctors and nurses, physios and psychotherapists, dialysis technicians and radiotherapists.

But we also need the computer staff, the pay clerks and the hospital cleaners. Having adequate support staff allows clinical staff to get on with their jobs. Otherwise, it's the doctors and nurses who end up having to order equipment and fill out paperwork.

So called "backroom bureaucrats" play a vital role in keeping us safe and healthy. They set food-handling standards and inspect cafes so customers don't get food poisoning.

They check that people's immunisations are up to date, that women are having their breast screening and cervical smears, that middle-aged men are getting their blood pressure checked, that people with diabetes are having their eyes checked, that older people are getting their flu shots.

Every year we need bureaucrats and lab technicians to make sure the flu jab has the right mix of virus strains. And for every vaccine, it's bureaucrats who make sure the products are transported and stored safely.

It's bureaucrats who require ingredients be listed on processed food. Not a big issue to many of us perhaps, but ask the parent of a child with a peanut allergy what they think about "bureaucratic labelling".

Then there's the team on the phones at Quitline. And the enforcement officers who make sure tobacco isn't sold to children, and that those responsible are prosecuted if they do.

There are the food-safety workers who ensure melamine contamination doesn't happen here. There are the emergency management workers, the ones we rely on to plan for The Big One.

Not one of them "front line", but all of them needed.

In a recession, the health of a population is less robust than in good economic times. Reducing the "backroom" workers who help prevent sickness will inevitably lead to more demand for hospital beds.

Efficiency and value for taxpayers' money are extremely important in health. But any economist will tell you it's a false economy to save money by letting people get sick so they need more expensive treatment in hospitals further down the line.

Dr Gay Keating is the national executive officer of the Public Health Association.

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Craig Longhurst   #2   11:21 pm Jun 30 2010

What seems to have been excused scrutiny is the actual mechanism by which Govt is "putting more focus on frontline services." In many cases this is an absolute lie. At Ministry of Justice jobs were cut in both so-called "back room" and frontline positions, but more were cut in the support roles, so the net effect was a mathematical shift in the balance towards front line staffing, but an actual reduction in absolute numbers of frontline staff. It's a lot like saying that the most popular candidate was elected President, after sending out hit squads to murder the other contenders.

Unfortunately, it only takes a minor percentage of support roles to be cut for serious impacts on the ability of front line staff to perform at maximum efficiency, but if that small percentage remains small most people will retain their jobs and not really understand what all the fuss is about. That might remain the case until the wrong person is delivered to court on the wrong day, or a blood type certificate is placed on the wrong pack. Then another one or two people might feel the impact of shortsighted cost savings where they can't immediately be seen.

deemac   #1   04:00 pm Mar 30 2010

well said - too many of thes "efficiency savings" will turn out to be false economies. But it makes it look as if the government are "doing something" , even if that "something" is pointless or even counterproductive

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