'Error in rostering system' blamed for the delays
Around 4,000 hospital and health workers in Waikato had their pay delayed after a failure in Health NZ's payroll system that unions said should be reviewed by the government.
The glitch affected roughly half of the Waikato health workforce on Wednesday, with the pay issue resolved on Thursday.
Health NZ has apologised for the issue and attributed the failure to an "error in the rostering system used to calculate pays."
"We are confident we have addressed the underlying reasons, and we have reduced the likelihood of this reoccurring," said Robyn Shearer from Health NZ's people and culture team, as quoted by Radio New Zealand.
Apology not enough
But the Public Service Association (PSA) said the apology from Health NZ was not enough.
"Health NZ must urgently get to the bottom of what happened here and make sure it never happens again," said PSA national secretary Fleur Fitzsimons in a statement.
According to the PSA official, the payroll failure is a direct consequence of running a health system without the resources it needs.
"This is not an isolated incident. IT failures have become a recurring feature of our public health system and that is no accident," she added.
"Just last week, a critical medical imaging system was down for two hours across Auckland and Northland hospitals delaying results for clinicians."
According to Fitzsimons, the cuts to Health NZ's workforce are not helping the situation.
Health NZ has cut around 23% of its IT workforce, in addition to 2,800 health workers losing their jobs, as part of the government's spending cuts.
"The PSA has repeatedly warned that cuts to Health New Zealand's Digital Services workforce would make IT failures more likely and harder to fix," Fitzsimons said.
"Workers and patients cannot afford for the Government to keep ignoring the warning signs. It's time for the Health Minister to act."
