A Canterbury man whose surgery has been delayed is disbelieving that a cost-savings drive ordered at hospitals will not affect patient care.
Health New Zealand/Te Whatu Ora has given the 20 health districts a target to save $105 million collectively by the end of June, by reining in spending on staff such as on overtime.
Canterbury district must save $13.3 million in 10 weeks - which equated to a rate of about five per cent of its operational spend in that period.
The man just received a hospital letter warning him he now faces a long wait for surgery. The letter stated: "We sincerely apologise for this, but the circumstances are not within our control."
Health Minister Shane Reti said on Friday that "none of these cost-saving measures will impact the level of care patients receive".
The man said that seemed "incredibly naive".
His one-page letter from the hospital contained a "special notice about current waiting times for surgery".
RNZ has seen the letter and asked Te Whatu Ora how many had been sent out.
"The letter that was sent to me was obviously sent to a large number of people awaiting surgery, possibly thousands," the man said.
The letter said: "Unfortunately, the health system has been under very high pressure, in part due to the ongoing effects of Covid-19.
"We currently only have capacity to treat patients with a non-deferrable condition, such as cancer.
"When our capacity improves, there will be a large number of patients that we will need to prioritise surgery for, and this is going to take some time.
"This means the waiting time for your surgery is currently much longer than expected, and longer than you may have been indicated."
Health New Zealand chief executive Margie Apa has said hospitals now have enough staff to "live within our means" post-Covid.
"Times have moved on and that means a return to more business-as-usual practices," Apa said in a letter to health unions a few days ago, outlining the savings drive - what she called "reducing the overspend, not making cuts".
The Canterbury man said the hospital had told him directly that he would have to wait a year.
"In 2022 the wait time was 65 days. Now it is 365 days. This quite frankly is absurd and totally unacceptable," he emailed RNZ.
"I must confess that I was stunned at the state of things. My normally placid GP cut loose with language that you would not expect from a doctor."
The last three months had driven spending over budget, the health agency said.
Its quarterly report to December 2023 showed internal personnel costs were $100 million under budget, at $5.6 billion for the first six months of the financial year, against a budget of $5.7 billion.
But outsourced personnel costs were $112 million over budget, mostly due to overspending on external medical staff ($100 million) and external management and administration personnel ($108 million).
The man said he appreciated the country had to "tighten our belts".
"But we need to be reassured of a high level of competence in our nation's leadership. This saga reeks of immaturity and inexperience.
"It was completely predictable that the hospital would react in this way."
