Rapid growth in private surgery a threat to the public system

Public money being funnelled into private health care practices is undermining the public health care system a new report says.

The Creeping Privatisation report, published by the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists - Toi Mata Hauora, reveals between 2014 and 2020 the estimated number of elective private hospital discharges increased by 38 per cent, while public hospital non-acute discharges dropped 4 per cent.

Over the same period the number of adults who saw a specialist at a private hospital (other than as an inpatient) jumped up 32 per cent.

"The public system is undermining itself with 46 per cent of private hospital discharges already funded from the public purse," ASMS Director of Policy and Research Harriet Wild says. "Lack of investment in the public hospital workforce and infrastructure is rapidly increasing dependency on private services - to provide what public services cannot.

"Further expansion of private health services means an expansion of private health staff. In a world desperately short of health workers, Aotearoa New Zealand’s private health sector is inevitably poaching from an already over-stretched public hospital workforce - and its easy pickings, given the poorer working conditions in public practice."

The report also addresses equity issues that arise from an increase in private healthcare provision.

"Private hospitals benefit those who can pay to play," Wild says. "Those who have the money, or health insurance, to fund their surgery will get a health outcomes those without simply cannot."