Doctor numbers not all they've been cracked up to be

Tony Ryall owes an apology not only to the country’s doctors but to all New Zealanders for persisting with the fiction that the country is awash with doctors, Labour Health spokesperson Maryan Street says.

“According to Mr Ryall there were 500 more doctors working in our hospitals by early 2011 than previously. That number crept up to 800 as we got closer to the election, and by April 2012, the number he was trumpeting was 1000.

“Doctors rightly challenged those figures.

“They have now been vindicated with new information backing up their assertions that the numbers were nothing like those the Minister has been spouting.

“After much agitation, the doctors’ union, the ASMS, has obtained the real figure from the National Health Board.

“And surprise, surprise - between 2008 and 2011, the number of senior doctors or specialist increased by 415.

“Add in the Medical Council’s survey data which shows that resident medical officers or junior doctors have increased by 277 from 2008-2011, and you have a grand total of about 692 extra doctors over three years, around 25 per cent less than the number recruited when Labour was in government.

“The only question remaining is whether or not the National Health Board was massaging the figures and giving Tony Ryall what he wanted to hear, or whether he just didn’t ask the right questions on purpose, something which seems to be a recurring theme with this Government,”  Maryan Street said.