Alexander (Sandy) Milne

I attended the well-supported meeting on our crumbling healthcare services at Whakatane's Knox Presbyterian Church on April 30, addressed by doctors Art Nahill and Glenn Colquhoun.

I was impressed by the number of nurses who attended, especially those who gave eloquent off-the-cuff presentations from the floor.  I was disappointed but not surprised at the small number of doctors there, however, a Whakatāne Hospital emergency department doctor made up for that with her outstanding contribution.

I awoke next morning to hear that 5000 New Zealand doctors had walked off the job for 24 hours in protest at stalled negotiations on pay and conditions.  That evening a spokesman for the strikers promised more strikes if they didn't get their way.

Before readers rush off to support striking doctors, consider this opinion of a long-retired but still caring and active clinical laboratory scientist, who never left his lab and deserted patients by striking.
 
Those 5000 well-educated doctors took up a total of perhaps 40,000 years of medical school places in universities in New Zealand or overseas, yet with their combined educations and wisdom they couldn't think of better ways to show their displeasure about their pay and conditions than disrupting the healthcare of thousands of their patients for 24 hours.  

Two of my friends were greatly affected by cancelled surgery; the second time for one of them.

In the past, coal miners and boiler makers were held in contempt for less disruptive behaviour.  

I suggest that these doctors would have done far better if 100 of them had appeared in parliament in their white or green or blue coats, instead of neglecting their patients.  
The New Zealand Medical Council medical workforce report (2023) provides interesting information, which I think is relevant now.  The number of registered doctors of medicine rose from 15,819 in 2017 to 19,350 in 2023.  There was no significant rise in average working hours (44.2 to 44.6).  Of special interest to me was the fact that the percentage of international medical graduates retained after one year rose from 65.7 percent in 2017 to 77.5 percent in 2022.
I appreciate that one should be careful about making assumptions from a small number of observations from a huge mass of data, but I have talked recently with some retired doctors who do not believe that doctors work harder nowadays.
In my own case, I was the principal lab scientist at Whakatane hospital for many years, running the lab and leading great research teams during and after hours.   I cheerfully worked far more than 50 hours every week, often under great pressure, as the stats of that time proved.

I still claim that health workers are lucky to have such rewarding jobs.  What else could be more satisfying than helping patients who need you, every day, in peacetime with no bombs dropping?

At our April 30 Hikoi on Health, Dr Nahill commented that, historically, most doctors were slow to speak out publicly in protest at shortcomings in our health system they were witnessing.  They didn't want to rock the boat.
I go further; they were derelict.  They were best placed to correct the stealthy Americanisation of our health system.   They were, by their inaction, complicit.

The boat is now sinking.  They should now help lead the task of reversing the privatisation and centralisation of healthcare, a major cause of the current crisis.

Five years ago, I gave a presentation to medical school staff and students in Wellington Hospital which I entitled, "The forgotten patient". (It is still on YouTube).  I outlined the process whereby for-profit labs had hijacked and seriously downgraded microbiology services for patients in communities like ours New Zealand-wide.

Now we are on the brink of an almost total Americanisation of our health services in the false belief that "private is best".

I invite readers to look at the United States of America and remember the patients.