Hospitals are a priority. The Budget needs to prove it.
Recognition is welcome. Funding is essential.
The Infrastructure Commission has sent a very clear message. Aotearoa New Zealand has not made the ongoing investments needed to keep up with the health infrastructure demands of a growing and ageing population.
The Commission’s recommendation that hospital investment should double as a share of GDP over the next 20 years (from around 0.2% to 0.4%) is a stark acknowledgement of the degree of underfunding. By contrast, spending on roads has recently sat at around 1.3% of GDP, with the Commission suggesting it should reduce to around 1.0% over the same period. Even allowing for different infrastructure needs, the comparison highlights how little has been directed to hospitals for a very long time.
This late recognition comes at a cost. Planned, sustained investment would have been cheaper, more efficient, and more equitable than the catch-up now required. Many New Zealanders have simply not benefited from a strong and equitable public health system because important funding decisions have been deferred year after year.
Kaitiaki Hauora welcomes the recognition, but the habitual delaying of necessary funding extends well beyond hospital infrastructure. It reflects a wider habit of putting off hard funding decisions in health, where workforce, services, and system capability have also been allowed to fall behind. New buildings alone will not fix a public health system that has been under-resourced across multiple fronts.
As the country heads into the next Budget and those that follow, Kaitiaki Hauora is calling for a major boost in health funding. After years of underinvestment, health spending needs to properly account for a growing and ageing population, workforce pressures, and the real cost of delay across the system.