Former Te Whatu Ora board member Curtis Walker rejects ‘disinformation’ attacks

“They haven’t got their facts straight”

Former Te Whatu Ora board member Curtis Walker has spoken out strongly against the Coalition Government’s “disinformation” attacks on the dismissed board’s financial and governance skills.

Dr Walker, a kidney specialist and former Medical Council chair, says he disagrees entirely with prime minister Christopher Luxon’s description of the former board as financially illiterate.

Mr Luxon, finance minister Nicola Willis, health minister Shane Reti and Te Whatu Ora commissioner Lester Levy (who was formerly board chair for 54 days) have been portraying Te Whatu Ora as a dysfunctional organisation.

Dr Reti replaced the board with Professor Levy as commissioner from 24 July, blaming lack of oversight, overspending and an “estimated deficit of $1.4 billion by the end of 2024/25”.

But Dr Walker believes it’s a beat up – a “casus belli”, “an excuse to put a commissioner in, which I don’t think it was warranted”.

“It’s interesting that as the political pressure has come on the Government and the prime minister, they have sought to up the ante on their disinformation frankly. And they’ve got it wrong as was shown, for example, by the ’14 layers of management’ comment.”

“…they haven’t got their facts straight and they weren’t sitting around the board table and they also don’t work in the front line of the health service like I do,” Dr Walker says.

“As the political pressure has come on the Government, they have been increasingly desperate in casting about for misinformation.”

Dr Reti has said Te Whatu Ora first reported a worsening financial position to him in March and is now overspending at around $130 million a month.

Dr Walker first learned of overspending at Te Whatu Ora in March, he says. He agrees with chief executive Margie Apa’s comment that a big factor in the overspending was being over-budget on the number of nurses employed.

“That’s pay settlements, pay equity,” Dr Walker says, “and that’s before you even get on to the really important stuff like pay parity with primary care and the community sector.”

In the preceding months of this financial year, the organisation’s spending was less than the budget.

“Deliberately, we were keeping money back so we could invest in new things like free community radiology…so we were saving back-office dollars in the hundreds of millions of dollars to put back into the front line and to pay front-line staff as much as we possibly could.”

Dr Walker disputes the claims the board failed to ask the right questions and failed to exercise financial control.

When the board became aware of the deficit in March, members said, “how did this happen, what are we going to do about it to get the budget back in shape and looking forward. All of the questions that are currently being asked, the board was aware of and was asking”.

The board met Dr Reti a couple of times since he was made health minister, and they were constructive meetings.

“…the board was on board with the Government’s five targets. [We said] yep, let’s take those up, let’s make them our operational targets.”

Contrary to the Government’s claims, Dr Walker says the board was very open from the start of the reforms about providing information as needed and as requested by the Ministry of Health.

Dr Walker disagrees with the portrayal of Te Whatu Ora as having a bloated bureaucracy. He says it could “almost certainly” reduce spending on contractors and there are efficiencies to be gained.

“Are there 14 layers of bloated bureaucracy? Ah, no. If you start cutting some of those people out, you’ll see how quickly people at the front line will have their jobs impacted.”

Asked for his opinion on the reasons for the Government’s actions, Dr Walker says, “I think that they’ve never been that comfortable with the health reforms. They weren’t seen as their reforms, and so they’ve come in, and in the incredibly challenging situation that is health, they have used that challenge as a casus belli, an excuse to put a commissioner in, which I don’t think was warranted.”

He adds: “…working at the front line I would like the new commission to be successful…you [now] don’t have clinicians sitting around the board, you don’t have a diversity of views, opinions and experiences sitting around the table contributing, so be it on the shoulders of those few. You can hear I’m annoyed.”