Source: Radio New Zealand
The payroll system at Hutt Hospital went down on Wednesday. RNZ / REECE BAKER
A nursing union delegate says an IT issue at Hutt Hospital meant nurses were underpaid for their most recent pay run.
Health New Zealand has since fixed the problem, which it said affected more than a thousand nurses.
But the delegate said the situation had been “a real concern” for staff, while Health New Zealand grapples with outages in different regions.
The payroll system went down on Wednesday, meaning staff were unable to check whether they have been paid correctly.
The New Zealand Nurses Organisation delegate said members had first noticed their pay packets “were a little bit light” on Wednesday evening, leading them to believe there were some discrepancies with payroll.
“At the moment it’s hard to know, because we can’t access our payroll system,” the delegate said.
“We couldn’t access our payslips, which was a bit of a worry, so we don’t know how much we’ve been underpaid, what discrepancies there may be. So it’s a real concern for members from that point of view, because I’ve heard, sort of anecdotal from some staff, that some staff may have been paid up to $1000 less than what they should have been for the fortnight.”
The delegate said they had been told payroll was trying to rectify the problem, but it had huge implications for people with expenses like rent or mortgages.
An email from the Hutt Valley payroll team to staff on Friday afternoon, seen by RNZ, explained approximately 1132 nursing staff were affected by the issue with PAYE calculation, and the underpayments were of “varying values”.
“We have identified the cause, fixed the issue and are currently preparing to bank all underpayments to employees today,” the email said.
Health New Zealand apologised to the staff, and encouraged them to contact the payroll team if they had been affected by penalties on defaulted payments.
“We will do our best to support you, however we need to consider each request on a case-by-case basis.”
The delegate encouraged members who may have been underpaid to speak to their landlord or bank to explain it was beyond their control.
“Hopefully people won’t suffer any penalty payments or any adverse financial hardship as a result of this occurring. Hopefully they’ll get it sorted and there might be a supplementary pay run.”
In April, Health New Zealand confirmed it would [https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/559510/health-nz-confirms-a-third-of-all-it-roles-will-be-cut
cut around a third of IT roles].
Stuff has reported a consultancy firm had been contracted to fill gaps on the IT service desks until the end of January.
The delegate questioned whether this had played a part in the outages.
“No doubt the poor people are working as hard as they can, with all of the restructuring and redundancies that’ve gone on. Is this a result of these things? Who knows,” they said.
“The government talks about getting rid of all these back office people. It’s these back office people that are vital to keeping the frontline going. It’s the vital IT staff that we need, those back office administrators which keep the oil in the engine, and they keep the cogs turning, because without them we’re absolutely stuck. We’re really, really stuck.”
RNZ understands a close call in Tairāwhiti almost led to a similar situation, but it was resolved in time.
According to an email, staff were told on Wednesday morning that the payroll system was unavailable due to a server issue, and it meant pay would be delayed.
That evening, staff were then told the issue had been resolved and pay was on track.
RNZ has contacted Health New Zealand for comment about the payroll issues.
It had earlier confirmed a major technology outage at Capital and Coast, which had affected a range of clinical and administrative systems.
It followed an [https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/584026/public-service-association-says-southern-hospitals-experienced-major-it-outage
outage across Southern hospitals] earlier in the week, which had prevented clinicians from accessing applications that track dosage information, lab results, and patient notes.
Parties point fingers over outages
Health minister Simeon Brown said doctors, nurses, and healthcare workers deserved reliable IT systems that supported them in reducing wait times for patients, and he shared patients’ expectations that the systems worked reliably.
“I’ve asked Health New Zealand to work urgently to resolve these recent issues, ensure stability for our health workforce, and deliver the digital improvements Kiwi patients expect and deserve,” he said.
Brown’s office said Health New Zealand was best placed to respond to specific technical questions about outages, system ownership, and timeframes for resolution.
Labour’s health spokesperson Dr Ayesha Verrall said the government had taken a “lax” approach to the health system’s IT needs, and it was putting patients at risk.
“The recent ManageMyHealth fiasco and continued IT outages are examples of what happens when you cut one third of IT staff and cut funding for data and digital capability as this government has done,” she said.
But Brown’s office said Health New Zealand was dealing with “significant legacy problems” caused by Labour’s reforms to the health system.
“Under Chris Hipkins and Ayesha Verrall, Labour then cut investment in health data and digital in late 2023, while spending millions on creating new layers of bureaucracy. This left Health New Zealand with fragmented, ageing systems, and increased vulnerability across the network,” a spokesperson for the minister said.
The spokesperson said the result was a “complex and fragile” digital environment, and the recently-announced Health Digital Investment Plan would stabilise critical systems and modernise healthcare technology.
Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
