Health New Zealand Te Whatu Ora has suggested disbanding a project team that plays an important role in addressing one of the main challenges in expanding New Zealand’s health workforce: securing student placements.
Fleur Fitzsimons, national secretary of the Public Service Association Te Pūkenga Here Tikanga Mahi, expressed deep disappointment upon learning that Health NZ has chosen to cut another vital team of employees.
“The Health NZ Workforce Development team, who have been tasked with growing New Zealand’s health workforce, is one of the latest groups to be put up for disestablishment at the agency,” Fitzsimons said.
While highly praised by educators, a key initiative within the Workforce Development group, focused on creating a new digital tool to centralise student placement opportunities, is also slated for closure.
“Student placements has been identified as a long-standing, critical obstacle in growing the number of skilled health workforce in New Zealand that our population needs, and that this project was set up as a direct result of feedback from the health and education sectors. This decision will make fixing our health workforce shortages even harder.”
“The team has seen from its testing stage that this digital tool could make the whole placement process much more efficient for both educators and clinicians.”
At present, education providers have to reach out directly to health providers, like hospitals, to arrange student placements. Consequently, securing these placements—which are mandatory for many qualifications—can be very competitive.
“By cutting this team, you might save a few dollars now – but as the country’s population ages and the need for health services increases, we’ll pay dearly for the under-investment,” Fitzsimons said.