New Zealand Medical Association to be liquidated

“Serial NZMA boards and staff have made many attempts over the last few years to come up with a way to save the association”

The NZMA board is recommending members vote for the long-standing body’s liquidation at its 30 May annual general meeting.

In a statement released early this afternoon, board chair Alistair Humphrey says the association’s unsustainable position is heartbreaking: “The reality now is that this board and this chair have to convey the heartbreaking news to the members: the financial position of the New Zealand Medical Association is unsustainable.”

He says the shock announcement follows two decades of stagnant membership and accumulated deficits which have reached the point where dissolution is the only option, “or we will soon become insolvent and unable to meet our obligations to staff and creditors”.

“Serial NZMA boards and staff have made many attempts over the last few years to come up with a way to save the association – to pare back, to undertake a merger, to raise revenue or trim costs somewhere or another.”

The membership of NZMA is believed to number about 5000 from all areas of medicine.

Dr Humphrey says the expanding number of organisations representing different parts of the healthcare sector has also seen NZMA membership dwindle, but he thanks all members for their dedication to the association, the medical profession and to New Zealanders over many years.

He says NZMA still has ownership of significant assets – including the New Zealand Medical Journal, the Code of Ethics, the Benevolent Fund and New Zealand’s membership of the World Medical Association – which will need to be taken up by other organisations.

Discussions regarding the future ownership of these assets are now under way, says Dr Humphrey.

For the liquidation to be actioned, a resolution must be approved by members at the 30 May meeting and then confirmed at a follow-up meeting in June.

The New Zealand Medical Association was formed more than a century ago before its inaugural meeting in Otago in 1886. Ten years later, the association became affiliated with the British Medical Association, in 1896, and remained a branch of the BMA until 1967.

New Zealand Doctor Rata Aotearoa is seeking further comment on the announcement.