Why I am standing again in District Health Board elections By David Tranter Health Spokesman, Democrats for social credit
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ive years ago 1 resigned from the West Coast DUB when I was the only dissenting voice in a ten to one vote endorsing management's disgraceful decision to dump Hugh Bodle, one of the finest surgeons ever to have served the Coast - or any other area of New Zealand. Mr. Bodle spent 25 years at Grey Hospital and apart from being a very fine surgeon he was renowned throughout the community for being the surgeon who would go back late at night after a full day in the operating theatre to check on a patient he felt concerned about.
However, having learned a great deal
about DHB processes since then, and seeing the way corporatised management is systematically eroding the caring ethic of the health professions throughout New Zealand, I feel it's worth a last try on my part at least - to make another effort.
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I am also heartened by a number of community-minded people who are going to stand for the board ?is time, and since it appears that only one of the elected sitting members is going to stand - and the Auckland-based chairman is stepping down - maybe a new broom might have a chance of effecting some change.
As a board member I saw petitions from the Coast's G.P.s and nurses Of course, 1 run the risk that the voting backing Mr. Bodle and asking for him to public may say, "We voted for you before be retained. Those petitions were treated and you quit after a year", in which case, with contempt by management and the so be it - that's democracy. board as was the massive public support for him expressed in To me, one of the When the alternativeis continuing a torrent of letters to clearest indicators of corporatisation of what should be a the failure of DHBs the editor in local papers. service based on the ethic of helping to influence what is happening in the In a secret board those in need of care there's no choice ~ u b l i chealth service meeting before the is shown by the role played over the past public meeting at which the vote was six years by highly respected Christchurch taken the chairman pressured me to surgeon Philip Bagshaw. agree with the other members and informed me that if I publicly disagreed In standing down from the Canterbury with management I would be breaking the DHB board in 2004 Mr. Bagshaw law under the Health and Disability Act. I described the DHBs as "dysfunctional" did so - and nothing happened - but and that as a board member he had been coming after a year of utter frustration as unable to make any difference to what my fellow board members repeatedly happened. knuckled under to management agendas Subsequently Mr. Bagshaw has been a this despicable episode was the last straw prime mover behind the setting up of a for me. Mr. Bodle's worth was again charity-funded hospital in Christchurch to spelled out when the Ne!son+-Marlborough try to fill some of the gaps in the public DHB snapped him up to work for them as service, albeit he admits it will only be soon as he became available. able to help a small proportion of those Why was he dumped? In my view it who cannot access treatment in the public was nothing more than petty, internal, old- system. boy network politics which have emerged If that is not a stunning indictment of on the West Coast under Simon Upton's lunatic health management theories which the wasteful, post-1993, corporate mindset-afflicted public health system I have been continued under subsequent don't know what is. governments. So what can be achieved on the little So after a year of witnessing the West Coast board? farcical pretence of DHBs which amount to nothing more than a buffer to deflect criticism from government and to mbberstamp everything put before them by the Health Ministry and local corporate management, I felt unable to participate further in their moralSy and ethically bankrupt processes.
Clearly the corporate juggernaut has huge momentum and the effects of antagonising devoted health professionals over the past decade and a half may already have spelt the death knelt for the Coast's base hospital as a facility with extensive surgical services.
Having explained all that it must appear completely illogical to stand again for election to the same board.
With entire departments run by shortterm locums and little inducement other than money to keep staff here. the
Guardian PoStical Review, Issue 53, 2007 - Page 11
destruction of the traditional supportive smaller hospital environment is almost complete. But whatever lies ahead in that respect I still believe there is a vital role for a genuinely community-minded board in bringing health administration into the open (it is not unusual for half of the Coast board's monthly meetings to be held "in-committee") instead of the current spin-doctor approach which prevents people from knowing what is going on. Whatever the fate of the base hospital which, incidentally, is increasingly being added to for mental health patient accommodation (whatever happened to "deinstitutionalisation"?) primary health care must be retained and improved for the Coasfs far-flung population. It should not be forgotten that Karamea to Haast is roughly the same distance as Auckland to Wellington. Further, IF seven genuinely communityminded board members were elected (we may as well write off the governmentappointed members of the board who clearly take their orders from their political masters in Wellington and the local corporate office) and those elected members stuck together they may light a candle amidst the pervading gloom of dysfunctional DHB boards throughout the country,
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Call me a cock-eyed optimist but when the alternative is continuing corporalisation of what should be a service based on the ethic of helping those in need of care there's no choice.