Prime Minister Christopher Luxon is defending his approach to addressing issues within New Zealand’s health system as he expresses his sadness over the death of a woman in Rotorua Hospital’s emergency department.

It comes as Luxon backs his Health Minister’s intervention regarding a Hawke’s Bay health policy that would have seen young Māori and Pasifika deemed eligible for some free healthcare services based on their ethnicity, something Luxon deemed “out of line”.

RNZ today reported the death of a woman in the waiting room of Rotorua Hospital’s emergency department last month after allegedly waiting three hours to be seen.

It was alleged the department was short-staffed and staff had already expressed concern about excessive wait times, RNZ reported. Health NZ was conducting an internal review of the incident.

Luxon, who said he wasn’t aware of the specifics of the matter, sent his condolences to the woman’s family and said he’d received assurances from Health Minister Dr Shane Reti that Rotorua’s ED was able to appropriately deliver care.

“We know that there are real pressures on healthcare and parts of our healthcare system,” he said.

“We’re making sure we’re doing everything we can around funding, workforce, targets and now a new commissioner in charge of Health New Zealand.”

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Health Minister Dr Shane Reti want to focus primarily on need. Photo / Ben Dickens

New Commissioner Lester Levy, brought in after the Government’s concerns about Health NZ’s financial position, had prioritised improving ED wait times. One of the Government’s main health targets was to ensure 95% of patients were admitted, discharged or transferred from an emergency department within six hours.

Reti, also expressing sorrow for the woman’s family, said he would await Health NZ’s review before commenting further, but he did confirm he’d received assurances that “services are safe, that staff are safe and that the outcomes are safe”.

He also referenced Rotorua Hospital’s position as among the best in the country for ED wait times in the first quarter of this year.

Labour health spokeswoman Dr Ayesha Verrall said the incident was a tragedy and believed further information was needed from Reti about the impact of the Government’s financial cuts across the public sector including health.

“I am not reassured by Dr Reti’s assurances,” she said.

“The fact is we know clinical risks exist across our health system and going one-by-one where there’s been a tragedy and asking for things to get better is not the right approach.

“There needs to be transparency on where these risks lie and whether or not those gaps in staffing where they are critical are being addressed.”

Health policy prioritising Māori/Pasifika ‘out of line’ - PM

Luxon also backed Reti over the Government’s position on a health policy in Hawke’s Bay that considered young Māori and Pasifika eligible for some free healthcare services on the basis of their ethnicity.

Act initially protested the policy last week and Reti yesterday confirmed he’d demanded the policy be changed so eligibility only extended to young people living in deprived areas, those with serious long-term health conditions and Community Service card holders.

Reti had argued health need was the priority regarding the delivery of health services and largely opposed provision based on ethnicity.

Luxon said his Government’s “very simple” approach to healthcare was based on “need, not ethnicity or race”.

“That [policy] was out of line, out of order.”

Reti claimed he understood the intention behind the policy – to help vulnerable communities – but he maintained that could be achieved through a needs-based focus.

Ikaroa-Rāwhiti MP Cushla Tangaere-Manuel believes the criteria should have been retained. Photo / George Heard

Labour’s Ikaroa-Rāwhiti MP Cushla Tangaere-Manuel, whose constituency included Hawke’s Bay, pushed back against concerns particularly from Act that health service delivery based on ethnicity was divisive.

“The reason we have targeted healthcare is because we’ve seen in decades past that Māori and Pacifica have not had that access and that’s why we have poor health statistics.

“So it’s not divisive, it’s actually addressing a need we know exists.”

In a statement, a Health NZ spokesperson said the entity knew it needed to be “aligned with Government expectations”.

“In this case, the recent criteria didn’t fully reflect that. We’ve changed that.”

Adam Pearse is a political reporter in the NZ Herald Press Gallery team, based at Parliament. He has worked for NZME since 2018, covering sport and health for the Northern Advocate in Whangārei before moving to the NZ Herald in Auckland, covering Covid-19 and crime.