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A DG like no other
A DG like no other
![Ashley Bloomfield Jeff Lowe Zorbing](/sites/default/files/styles/cropped_image_16_7_/public/2022-04/Ashley_Jeff_Karori.jpg?itok=T3dCmukU)
There are still four months to go in the role for director-general Ashley Bloomfield. Editor Barbara Fountain takes a moment to consider his contribution
The numerous household items that bear his image may put him up there with Che Guevara as a pop culture icon
It was always likely Ashley Bloomfield would leave the director-general’s job before his term ran out.
Forthcoming changes at the centre of the health system make Dr Bloomfield’s decision to depart in July a reasonable one, in light of the recalibration of the Ministry of Health he leads into a policy body rather than a funder and director of the public health system.
Instead, we will have Health New Zealand as the operations heart and the Māori Health Authority as the driver of improved health outcomes.
The PR might refer to the ministry as the “chief steward” of the reformed system, with a focus on strategy, policy, regulation and monitoring but, in reality, the future dynamic of the three agencies is unknown.
Dr Bloomfield has a beating public health heart and that meant he wouldn’t walk away, like your archetypal chief executive, as long as the pandemic was on the wrong trajectory.
So the stars aligned. COVID, if not beaten, has become manageable, and this week Dr Bloomfield’s resignation was announced and, like so many people around the country, I was happy for him and a little sad for me.
In the early weeks of 2020, pre-pandemic, I pondered the potential headlines for the year ahead.
I wrote: “There’s no doubting the sector breathed a sigh of relief when the eager and optimistic David Clark took over the health portfolio and, likewise, when the eminently likeable Ashley Bloomfield became director-general of health. ‘Davash’, the nice guy duo, has been open to discussion and ideas, but there is an undercurrent of concern that not enough is happening fast enough. And it’s hard to be brutal when Davash is trying hard.”
Dr Clark’s lack of political experience in the tough health portfolio before long led to his downfall during the first COVID lockdown.
In Dr Bloomfield’s case, lack of experience was not the problem; rather, the onerous task of turning a demoralised ministry into a focused authority within the sector – and the sector’s impatience for that to happen.
We’ll never know if Dr Bloomfield would ultimately have succeeded in that task. The coronavirus pandemic came along and any shortcomings the sector might have perceived in his corporate management were instantly replaced with absolute relief that he was at the helm.
The “Ashley phenomenon” has been incredible, and uniquely Kiwi. On a between-lockdowns holiday in Rawene, I met a dressmaker who proudly showed me her “Ashley” bag. Her effusive praise and fondness for the man she saw keeping us all safe were humbling.
The numerous household items that bear his image may yet put him up there with Che Guevara as a pop culture icon.
Some have been critical of a senior public servant being turned into a super hero (aided and abetted, I might add, by a cover photo taken by our own Virginia McMillan). But Dr Bloomfield never sought celebrity and it was obvious it was as big a surprise to him as it was to the rest of us.
As a country, we had never experienced anything like lockdown and as a community – the team of five million – we admired prime minister Jacinda Ardern for her leadership, but we loved Ashley for making us feel safer.
He was, and is, mild mannered, quietly spoken, confident with data, slightly geeky, whimsically funny – who will forget those eyebrows? And he puts us at ease. On the surface maybe more of a Clark Kent than a Superman.
It was never going to be an unblemished run but, with a generosity not shown to most of our tall poppies, the public forgave Dr Bloomfield when he messed up. His political bosses were less tolerant of ministry missteps that created political embarrassment, as with the lack of expected regular testing of border workers during the elimination phase of the COVID response and the controversy over access to data for Māori providers.
Dr Bloomfield still has another four months to go, in which a lot can happen, but the essence of his service will not change. And it is likely to inform the choice of his replacement.
My daughter quoted me a tweet yesterday: “I feel sorry for the next DG of Health who is going to have to put up with real strong ‘You’re not our real dad’ energy from the whole country.”
Much will be written about the pandemic in future years. Ultimately, I think the “Ashley” phenomenon is how everyday New Zealanders themselves chose to respond to the scary, untidy and unknown consequences of global pandemic. They trusted him. Nothing – not even the harshest review – will change that.
Director-general of health Ashley Bloomfield’s decision to step down a year short of his five-year term is widely accepted. The smile on his face as he spoke of the decision bore testament to a huge weight lifted – he is exhausted.
But his decision will potentially add another chapter to the recent history of difficulty with the director-general role, starting in 2010 when Stephen McKernan chose not to renew his four-year term.
At the time, it was no secret within the sector that fallout from the Ministerial Review Group report, including the establishment of a National Health Board, had created problems for the ministry and the role of the director-general.
One of the ministry’s deputy directors-general, Andrew Bridgman, was appointed acting director-general in July 2010, and held the role until the arrival in early 2011 of former NHS Scotland chief executive Kevin Woods. Unusually, the contract for Dr Woods, a geography PhD, was for three years only and he also chose not to renew it on completion.
Thereafter came a long spell without a permanent director-general as the state services commissioner of the day decided to hold fire until the general election had been held.
National Health Board executive director Chai Chuah was acting director-general for 16 months before being given the permanent role in March 2015. Mr Chuah undertook a controversial restructuring of the ministry but resigned midterm – his was a five-year term – in December 2017. Mr McKernan was parachuted back in until Dr Bloomfield was appointed in mid 2018.
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