Plunket's defending claims that a large amount of its funds are being funnelled into senior staff salaries.

LISTEN ABOVE AS PIRONGIA PLUNKET VOLUNTEER RUTH WEBB SPEAKS WITH ANDREW DICKENS

TVNZ reports 11 senior managers were paid more than $180,000, and $2 million was spent on consultants.

Plunket CEO Amanda Malu would not confirm those figures to NewstalkZB, but says funds raised by the community go back into community services.

She says Plunket requires staff with top clinical expertise.

"What we have is a group of highly passionate staff working in a competitive market in Wellington, and I can tell you that a number of senior managers took paycut to work at Plunket."

She says they need top people to drive ambitious programmes to make a difference to health outcomes for children.

"Like any big complex organisation, of course we need good financial systems, we need good payroll systems, HR systems."

Meanwhile, a former worker thinks Plunket has lost its way and expects volunteers will walk away after revelations of the large salaries paid to senior managers.

Plunket Head Office was already under fire from some community groups for transferring ownership of buildings, fund-raised for by volunteers.

Pip Simmons says it will be the last straw many volunteers.

"I think it's the most amazing organisation but I think it's just lost its way. I really think we need to get back to the model it used to be 20 years ago, and forget about all this corporate hoohar.

"Sadly I think that there'll be quite a lot volunteers who will move on, which would leave Plunket in a really different picture because a lot of those community groups are run by volunteers.

"If there's no volunteers a lot of what Plunket provides at a community services level won't be there."