Medical Recruitment Halts Despite Te Whatu Ora’s ClaimsMedical Recruitment Halts Despite Te Whatu Ora’s Claims Despite assurances from Te Whatu Ora/Health NZ, medical jobs remain unfilled across the country due to a stringent recruitment process. Hospital workers have reported that clinical positions are being left vacant, with a senior hospital leader criticizing the process as “overly bureaucratic and unnecessarily complex.” Following a hiring freeze on non-patient-facing roles, Te Whatu Ora initially claimed that essential clinical positions would be exempt. However, the Senior Doctors’ Union and other health workers allege that clinical recruitment has been severely impacted. A regional quota system and committee approvals have created obstacles to filling vacancies, even for departing doctors or nurses. The executive director of the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists, Sarah Dalton, stated that frustrated doctors across specialties have been unable to secure desperately needed personnel. Middlemore Hospital’s chief medical officer, Andrew Connolly, has also expressed concern about the delays. In an email, he criticized the “confusion” caused by unclear communication from head office and described the recruitment process as “very slow.” A Te Whatu Ora spokesperson attributed Connolly’s comments to an earlier version of the recruitment changes. However, Dalton maintained that hospital doctors and dentists report ongoing difficulties in hiring. “It is incredibly difficult to get approval to recruit,” Dalton said. “It has absolutely slowed things down where the point from our perspective it is a freeze.”
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.”
