[Medical Jobs Remain Unfilled Despite Te Whatu Ora Assurances][Medical Jobs Remain Unfilled Despite Te Whatu Ora Assurances] Despite assurances from Te Whatu Ora/Health NZ, medical jobs in hospitals across the country are reportedly going unfilled due to a crackdown on recruitment. Hospital workers have informed RNZ of vacant clinical positions in their departments, while a senior hospital leader has expressed concerns regarding the “overly complex and bureaucratic” recruitment process. In June, Te Whatu Ora implemented a hiring freeze on non-patient facing roles to manage its budget, but it remained unclear whether this freeze extended to medical positions. While the organization stated that essential clinical roles would be filled, it declined to clarify the practical implications or acknowledge any potential rejections. The senior doctors’ union and other health professionals have reported that clinical recruitment has come to a standstill, impacting even the replacement of departing doctors and nurses. According to the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists executive director, Sarah Dalton, frustrated doctors from various specialties have encountered difficulties in filling critical roles. Hospital leaders, like Middlemore’s chief medical officer of health, Andrew Connolly, have also expressed concerns about hiring delays. In an email to senior staff, Connolly acknowledged the frustration and challenges surrounding recruitment, emphasizing the slow and complex nature of the process. Te Whatu Ora clarified that Connolly’s email referred to an earlier version of the recruitment change, which required all roles to be approved by a single individual in the head office. However, Dalton maintains that little has changed in practice, with multiple instances of hiring still being stalled. “It is incredibly difficult to get approval to recruit… It has absolutely slowed things down where the point from our perspective it is a freeze,” said Dalton.
Medical jobs are going unfilled as part of a crackdown on hospital recruitment, despite Te Whatu Ora/Health NZ saying otherwise.
RNZ has heard from multiple hospital workers around the country who say clinical jobs in their departments are being left vacant – and a senior hospital leader has written to staff about the “overly complex and bureaucratic” recruitment process.
In June, Te Whatu Ora instigated a hiring freeze on all roles that were “not patient facing” to try to rein in its budget, but its language around whether that applied to any medical jobs was murky.
It said all clinical roles that “needed” to be filled would be, but did not answer questions about what that meant in practice and whether any were being turned down.
But the senior doctors’ union, and other health workers who contacted RNZ, said in many cases clinical recruitment had ground to a halt – even the straightforward replacement of a departing doctor or nurse.
There was now a quota on how many jobs could be filled for each region and every appointment had to be approved by a regional committee.
Association of Salaried Medical Specialists executive director Sarah Dalton said frustrated doctors from many specialties had told her they were unable to fill desperately needed roles.
Even hospital bosses, such as Middlemore’s chief medical officer of health, Andrew Connolly, had expressed concern about the lag.
In an email to his senior staff in June, seen by RNZ, he told them he was well aware of the frustration and challenges around hiring.
“The recent ‘confusion’ following Head Office comms has not helped, to put it mildly, but whilst there is apparently no freeze on clinical recruitment the process remains overly bureaucratic and unnecessarily complex and it is very slow,” he said.
A Te Whatu Ora spokesperson said the Connolly email referred to the earlier version of the recruitment change, where every role in the country had to be approved by one person in the head office, and not the updated regional committee process.
However, Dalton said hospital doctors and dentists told her little had changed and there were multiple examples of hiring still grinding to a halt.
“It is incredibly difficult to get approval to recruit, to go through a recruitment process, to do all of the machinery of getting someone into a role,” she said.
“It has absolutely slowed things down where the point from our perspective it is a freeze.”
