Heads should roll at Health

Stacey Kirk writes:

The Health Minister hasn’t called for the head of his top official, but perhaps he should. 

What’s incredible is that Director General of Health Chai Chuah didn’t offer it on a plate, the minute he had to tell Jonathan Coleman the individual DHB funding allocations the Government crowed about on Budget day were wrong. 

Every. Single. One of them. 

The Ministry of Health managed to botch up the amount of money DHBs would be getting to the tune of $38 million, and that’s incompetence, pure and simple. There were 14 DHBs that were overpaid that will have to give up some of their funds, while six were short-changed. 

I agree heads should roll for this.

Individuals can make mistakes, but a huge Ministry with over 1,000 staff should have systems and checks to pick up errors, and especially an error in something as crucial as Budget documentation.