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Speaker 1: Perhaps not a surprise, but it turns out half the

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Speaker 1: country's critical IT hardware and hospitals as out of date.

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Speaker 1: Health New Zealand have said significant investment is needed just

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Speaker 1: to keep the lights on. The former Health New Zealand chair,

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Speaker 1: of course, is Rob Campbell is backward. This Rob, very

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Speaker 1: good morning to you.

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Speaker 2: Come boy.

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Speaker 1: I take it this was the case when you were there.

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Speaker 2: It was certainly the case before I was there for

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Speaker 2: quite a long time. It had been deteriorate quite a

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Speaker 2: long time, not just the IT, but the physical infrastructure,

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Speaker 2: the staffing infrastructure, the external infrastructure to support the primary

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Speaker 2: healthcare sector across the board.

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Speaker 1: Is it sort of like the air four seven five seven.

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Speaker 1: It's one of those things when you're short of doctors

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Speaker 1: and nurses, you focus on them and the bandages and

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Speaker 1: not the IT.

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Speaker 2: No, I don't think the doctors and nurses would feel

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Speaker 2: they'd had too much attention. I think it's really quite

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Speaker 2: the opposite to that. This is a long term lack

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Speaker 2: of attention not just to spend, but to the efficiency

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Speaker 2: of spend. And it goes back as much to the

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Speaker 2: Ministry of Health and to polotics as it does to

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Speaker 2: far to Aura or indeed their predecessors, the district health boards.

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Speaker 2: There's a system which does not encourage innovation, does not

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Speaker 2: encourage addressing practical issues of how to make the system work.

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Speaker 2: It's directed from Molesworth Street, and like many things directed

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Speaker 2: from Wolsworth Street, it doesn't work all that well.

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Speaker 1: And does everyone agree with that or not?

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Speaker 2: Frankly, I think everyone does pretty much agree. But the

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Speaker 2: secret is, and I suspect this is true and other

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Speaker 2: areas in the public so is that you don't talk

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Speaker 2: about it. It's a bit like fight club. You know

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Speaker 2: it's true, you don't talk about it, and therefore you

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Speaker 2: kind of hope it.

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Speaker 1: Will go away, okay, And so hence we end up

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Speaker 1: where we are. An overarching question for you your assessment of

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Speaker 1: our system? Is it as bad as people make it

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Speaker 1: out to be? And is it an example of public

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Speaker 1: systems all over the Western world? Basically because all I

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Speaker 1: ever do is do interviews about how bug it up

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Speaker 1: the health system is? Is it really that bigger mess?

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Speaker 2: It's too big a mess to put up with. It's

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Speaker 2: not an unfamiliar mess compared to other public health systems

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Speaker 2: around the world, But I'm not sure that's much comfort.

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Speaker 2: While you're waiting in the emergency department or waiting for

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Speaker 2: an operation. So it is pretty common, and there are

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Speaker 2: some really big issues involved that all the more reason

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Speaker 2: to take a pragmatic, practical approach to what you can do.

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Speaker 2: There's been a bit of dreaming about our health system.

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Speaker 2: We observe it's terribly bad, and then we have people

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Speaker 2: who come in an event, these really sophisticated twenty first century,

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Speaker 2: twenty second century systems that will deal with all the things,

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Speaker 2: and they ignore the basic pragmatism of does this work?

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Speaker 2: Do we have a payroll system? Do the lights go on?

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Speaker 2: That kind of thing.

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Speaker 1: Good insight. I appreciate it. Rob Rob Campbell, former head

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Speaker 1: of Health News inaland For more from the Mic Asking Breakfast,

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Speaker 1: listen live to news Talks there'd be from six am weekdays,

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