Auckland mayoralty: Doctors dispute Brown’s claims of DHB success

Senior doctors at Auckland Hospital while leading mayoral candidate Wayne Brown was chairman, have described his repeated claims of success in the job as not the whole story.

One of Brown’s core campaign claims – in which he styles himself as “The Fixer” – is overseeing construction of a new main hospital building “on time and on time budget” during his six years as chairman of Auckland District Health Board from 2001.

Three doctors, who were in senior roles, said while bricks and mortar at Grafton was built on time, other critical parts of the project were shelved, creating a decade of problems.

Arend Merrie, who had been director of surgery, said the building was part of a wider Health Services development plan.

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A key element, and part of the equation as to why the new building had 200 beds fewer than recommended, was a high-functioning day stay, outpatient and rehabilitation facility at Greenlane Hospital, which was cut on budget grounds.

“As a community we are still paying the price for this 20 years on with a lack of beds, facilities and overstretched services,” Merrie said.

“This has led to well-publicised, long waiting lists and deferred surgeries with people living unnecessarily in pain and discomfort.”

That view was supported by another senior medical officer who Stuff agreed not to name.

Merrie said the wider project was well underway before Brown’s arrival in December 2001, and the then-senior executive Nigel Murray played the key role in it meeting budget.

The nine-level hospital building opened 21 months after Brown became chairman, with other new facilities built previously.

Six months after the City Hospital opened, media reported the waiting list to see a specialist had grown by 60%, partly due to clinicians shuttling between Greenlane and Grafton.

Merrie is still in clinical practice and an Associate Professor at Auckland University.

All three were critical of Brown’s leadership style, although one acknowledged he did have “some capability of completing the job he’d been given”.

“Wayne Brown was a divisive chair who at the end of his tenure left morale in the organisation at a very low point,” said Merrie who rejected Brown’s claim that by the time he left, doctors backed him.

“His comments regarding [NZME journalist] Simon Wilson mirror what has been shared with me and reflects a persistent, aggressive and toxic style of leadership which, as a director, would be unlikely to be condoned in a modern boardroom,” he said.

Merrie‘s description of encounters between Brown and groups of doctors was agreed with by another senior colleague at the time, whom Stuff also agreed not to identify.

Comments such as: “Putting doctors in charge of clinical leadership is like ‘Rabbits in charge of lettuce patch’”, and in reference to senior doctors “Every time I lift up a rock, I find slaters,” they said.

He and another attended a meeting of more than one hundred senior doctors, where Brown turned up an hour late and said “Give me a beer, I don’t want to be drinking chardonnay with poncy doctors”.

“(Brown) turned up to a bridge-building dinner with senior doctors as directed by (then health minister) Annette King and said I’ve got a new name for the children’s hospital and writes ‘Ratshit’ on the back of a napkin.”

Stuff sought response from Brown, and while he did not comment in detail, replied in a statement.

On complaints by doctors: “Leading large and complex organisations through change can put pressure on relationships and tempers,” he said.

“A vast number of perspectives from stakeholders from the community and within the hospital had to be considered, including clinical staff but also equally crucial parts of the organisation from sterilization [sic] technicians to cleaners. Ultimately the staff involved can be very proud of what they achieved and I enjoyed working with them,” Brown said.

The only concession Brown has made in public debates with reference to his Auckland District Health Board role, was acknowledging he was wrong in unsuccessfully trying to scrap the “Starship” name for the newly-constructed children’s hospital.

Brown was appointed by the Labour Government to chair the board, and media reports said he oversaw the shrinking of a $72m board deficit, to the budgeted $20m.

But the senior clinicians dispute Brown’s claim that $100m in savings were achieved, with the loss of a single service.

The clinicians point to the controversial decision to replace the commercial provider of community laboratory testing, Diagnostic MedLab (DML), with Labtests – a company part-owned by a former board member.

The original tender was overturned by the courts needing an extension of DML’s contract but eventually went to Labtests.

An editorial in The New Zealand Herald in March 2007 called for both Brown, and his board deputy chair Ross Keenan, to go.

“The board awarded it to Labtests, with no clinical input, nothing from pathologists, and in the end it must have been incredibly expensive,” said one of the clinicians who believed the full cost has never been made public,” Merrie said.

“It was a substantial failure in leadership in that space

On that issue Brown said: “The new blood testing contracts reduced costs, not just through a new provider but by creating market pressure on the incumbent. Any increased costs were a result of the ultimately unsuccessful legal action by the incumbent provider to overturn the DHB’s decision.”

Wayne Brown led Efeso Collins with a margin of 6% in the most recent poll for the mayoralty, with a high number of undecided and 20 other candidates in the race, which ends on October 8.