Dr Victor Luca, scientist and president of Whakatane Grey Power Association expresses his concerns regarding any moves to fully privatise health care in New Zealand
You would have to be living on another planet to think all is fair and well with our health system.
When 35% of New Zealanders have private health insurance and the rest do not, talk of equity is simply nonsense. Those with insurance have an expectation of prompt and premium treatment; the rest of us are confronted with waiting lists which seem to get longer by the day.
The Whakatāne District Grey Power Association has been resisting the privatisation of health. In 2021, I asked the Ministry of Health (MoH) for proof that privatisation was more economically efficient and produced better health outcomes than a fully funded public system. The MoH denied that the system was being increasingly privatised.
The following year, I led the presentation of a remit to the Grey Power Federation which read:
That Grey Power lobby to halt the ongoing privatisation of our Health System without a sound economic business case for each proposed implementation and corresponding solid evidence of improvements to the health outcomes for New Zealanders.
The remit passed unanimously at zone level and then at the AGM in August of 2022.
In February of 2025 our association organised a virtual conference which was hosted by Whakatāne District Council – Spotlight on NZ Health Crisis.
A number of health experts were invited to speak; the objective being to shed light on the state of our health system, its inequality and to propose solutions.
This conference can be viewed on Whakatāne District Council’s Youtube channel by searching, Community Health Forum – hosted by Mayor, Dr Victor Luca.
Later that year we reached out to the Minister of Health, Simeon Brown, asking for a chance to put our case that privatisation of our health system would be a tragedy for NZ.
At an audience with him in August, 2025, we were given 30 minutes to make our pitch. The meeting was attended by several committee members each with a question for Minister Brown.
I opened by thanking him for his support to restore secondary birthing services at Whakatāne Hospital and for his support of a new medical school at Waikato University. However, I pointed out that, ‘doctors don’t grow on trees’ and after many years of training, a fledgling doctor still requires mentoring.
Similarly, the same applied to the training of nurses and other health professionals.
The Minister then described levers which Government is pulling to alleviate the doctor shortage. He said these were to train more doctors, make it easier for overseas doctors to become registered here and to remunerate them more.
Sadly, due to the time taken to train a doctor, I believe this should have started decades ago.
I then showed the Minister figures outlining the dependence of life expectancy at birth on health expenditure per capita in terms of purchasing power parity.
In general, these indicated that the USA, a country with the most privatised health system in the world, appeared to be a failure. I emphasised this was not a path NZ should want to go down. I also intimated that our health system was on the precipice of collapse.
Minister Brown did not deny this. When I suggested NZ was privatising, he didn’t deny it and when I asked for proof that privatisation would result in improved economic performance and better patient outcomes, none was offered.
Whilst not expecting our visit to provoke a miracle, our delegation hoped the Minister would consider our concerns and, perhaps, temper his gusto for privatisation. We can only hope.
The big question is: ‘what comes next?’. It’s said that repeating the same mistake and expecting a different result is the very definition of madness. Clearly, what NZ has been doing hasn’t worked.
Federation Update: Health service privatisation
The Grey Power Federation Board acknowledges the work that Dr Victor Luca has invested in highlighting this important issue of privatisation in our health service.
On our website we highlighted the following as Grey Power’s current stance:
“Is this the NZ healthcare system we all want to see going forward where a private system dictates who gets medical attention?
Grey Power stands against this growing privatisation of our health system that creates huge disparities in patient care and siphons funds away from our struggling public health system. While NZ never offered the most advanced latest fashion medical technologies, we had a reputation that all New Zealanders had timely access to equitable quality care regardless of financial or social standing.
Minister Brown – the ball is in your court now to restore New Zealander’s faith in a functioning public health system that delivers equitable healthcare to all.” See www.greypower.co.nz/news/public-health-in-dire-state
Like Dr Luca and commentators, such as Dr Kaaren Mathias, Grey Power will continue to advocate that Health NZ be transparent and accountable to demonstrate improved value for the NZ taxpayer when shifting patient care from the public to the private health sector.
