A tale in three headlines:
Nursing workforce growth has stalled despite Government claims vacancies are falling, The Post, 28 July 2026:
The number of nurses employed by Health New Zealand has barely changed in two years, despite the Government pointing to falling vacancy rates and an active recruitment drive to address workforce shortages.Government tells nursing schools to stop training so many nurses, Stuff, 14 october 2026:Analysis of Health NZ workforce data by health economists Bill Rosenberg and Jacqueline Cumming shows nursing numbers increased rapidly through 2023 and early 2024 but have since plateaued.
[...]
Nursing FTEs increased by more than 3000 between March 2023 and March 2024, but have grown by just 54 positions in the two years since, Health NZ’s quarterly workforce reports show.
The Government has told nursing schools to train fewer nurses next year.Starship hospital delays child cancer treatments for up to a week amid nursing shortage, Govt confirms, New Zealand Herald, 15 October 2026:The edict came from the Tertiary Education Commission, to the surprise of many nursing professors and lecturers last week. And it arrived at a time when nursing levels have become a charged election issue, with nurses at hospitals raising alarm about “crisis” level staffing and growing concern about aged care too.
In a letter to nursing schools last week, the Tertiary Education Commission instructed them to revert nursing student numbers back to 2025 levels for the 2027 year. That would mean fewer people would be training to be nurses, according to academics Stuff spoke to.
A “horrified” nurse says Starship children’s hospital has suspended chemotherapy treatment and bone marrow transplants for cancer patients as it grapples with a staffing crisis.Refusing to hire people to cut costs. Refusing to train them to avoid stories about graduates unemployed because of the hiring freeze. And now, we get the consequences: staff shortages causing service collapse.[...]
The nurse told the Herald that management informed staff of the development last week. Hospital bosses were “terrified” the information would be made public “because of how bad it will look”.
The nurse said she and other staff were “horrified and appalled” at the postponements, which had the potential to adversely affect patient outcomes.
Its pretty clear now that the collapse of Aotearoa's health system isn't a passive thing which "just happened"; it is a deliberate act of murder by the regime. And like all austerity, it will have a bodycount. The Starship hospital collapse is likely to make that bodycount explicit.
Which invites the obvious question: when are we going to start prosecuting politicians for the social murder they commit?
