It has been announced that Rob Campbell has been appointed as Chair of Health NZ to help chart the future of our health system. He's a former casino boss, having been Chair of SkyCity Entertainment. He gave a talk to my class a few years ago. Great guy, tons of commercial experience, even studied economics (!) Yet is he a doctor? No. Does he have medical training? No. Surely then he's supported by other "interim health board members" who know about such matters? Like Amy Adams, the former National Party MP? But she's a lawyer. How about Cassandra Crowley? Another lawyer. What about Vanessa Stoddard, then? Another lawyer. Hang on. Is this a law firm or a national health system we're talking about? Yes, the vast majority of those on the new Health Board have no medical training whatsoever.
Does it matter? Yes. My former supervisor in the UK, Andrew Oswald, in an letter titled "Not Quite a Case of Lions Led by Donkeys', writes in the Financial Times, "You report that a review of the National Health System is to be led by a former soldier, Sir Gordon Messenger. Your article then says he will be supported by .. Amanda Pritchard, NHS chief executive. You get further quotes & opinions from Matthew Taylor & Chris Hopson .. who are also senior administrators. It appears from standard sources that none of these extremely talented men & women has a medical training. Yet many years of statistical research on “expert leaders” from scholars ... have shown that the best hospital systems are led & organized by medical doctors. One might even think that is an intuitively commonsensical finding. Perhaps we have to ask ourselves as a nation .. how in the future we can most efficiently choose those who oversee a medical organization that spends £200bn of taxpayers’ money a year".
In our case, NZ also needs to stop appointing a veritable army of people to run our $20 billion health system who have no medical training whatsoever. It's a disgrace.
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