The man in charge of turning around New Zealand’s health system has batted away criticism that he’s not focused on the $320,000-a-year role, saying he works 70-hour weeks alongside lecturing two university courses.
Health NZ commissioner Lester Levy was appointed to the role in July, part of what minister Shane Reti has said was a “turnaround job”.
But a report in The Post revealed Levy is dividing his time on that job with another — as a lecturer at the Auckland University of Technology (AUT).
One nurse told 1News today he was “utterly astounded and disgusted” Levy’s attentions weren’t solely on his commissioner role.
“I get paid $50 an hour to care for some of the most vulnerable and disturbed people in our society who really do need some care,” he said.
“And he’s giving lectures on IT at AUT — nah, not acceptable.”
Levy has the Prime Minister’s backing and defended holding the two positions simultaneously, but has been further criticised for failing to provide documents to opposition MPs to allow them a chance to hold him to account.
The health commissioner fronted a select committee earlier today for a briefing on financial scrutiny for Health NZ, alongside the agency’s chief executive Margie Apa.
Fronting media afterwards, Levy said the classes he taught were all online.
“I’m not a classroom teacher. My students are all postgraduate, specialised, relatively small classes … and there’s plenty [of] time to do everything.”
Asked how many hours he was putting in as Health Commissioner, Levy said it was “at least 10 to 12” hours a day, seven days a week.
“Ask Margie [Apa, Health NZ chief executive]. We just work like there’s no tomorrow … it’s probably not healthy.”
Apa, who was stood beside Levy, said: “Yes, yes, yes.”
Asked if his full attention should be on his role as Health Commissioner, Levy said the job had never been listed as a full-time position.
“But I would propose to you, if you’re working 10 to 12 hours a day on a particular job, that’s quite a lot.”
Levy’s $320,000 a year for the role was set by the Public Service Commission and the Ministry of Health, not Health NZ. Levy said issues at Dargaville Hospital — where there was no doctor to deal with a cardiac arrest in July — were “still being worked on”.
He said: “It’s not for me to fix everything. We have now regional deputy chief executives and the regional deputy chief executive in that area will be focused on that.”
Levy also maintains an active profile on a Celebrity Speakers website, listing him as available as a keynote speaker with expertise in culture, mastering leadership, and customer service and experience.
Apa said Health NZ would soon publish a health workforce plan that would show it had increased clinical staffing over the last year by more than 4100.
“The distribution of those FTEs may not be in the areas where we do have vacancies and shortages, so emergency departments, mental health, critical care are areas where it does take us a lot longer because of the highly specialised skill sets that we need does take us a bit longer to recruit.”
Labour’s health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall said she couldn’t see where in the system the 4100-odd workers were.
“I do think it’s very hard to make $1.4 billion worth of cuts in the system without this impacting frontline services,” she said.
“Every day we hear from nurses and other professionals around the country that vitally important roles for patient care are not being filled. That’s why it’s so important that we have transparency about what’s really going on.”
Verrall said the hiring for those workers would have come from the workforce plan the previous government announced in July 2023.
She said Labour had requested budgets, staffing numbers, monthly accounts, and working, on how cuts were allocated and decided upon for the committee hearing Levy and Apa attended on Wednesday, but they were not supplied, and without a reason.
Regarding Levy having working roles outside that of Health Commissioner, Verrall said she found it “utterly unacceptable” to have “such a high salary” while not doing regular interviews and presenting public accountability documents, like financial documents required for scrutiny before a select committee.
She acknowledged Levy had just been interviewed, but said she was aware it was not a regular occurrence, in her view.
“Crucial things like minutes of his decisions [and] monthly accounts are not being presented. That’s absolutely a legitimate expectation from the New Zealand public.
“I am not in a position to judge how many hours he’s working or that sort of thing. I will hold him to account on the publicly available information — that is expected of all government departments — that I expect him to deliver.”
Levy said reporting was “quite slow because it’s a very complex system”. He had undertaken to provide the documents next week.
Labour leader Chris Hipkins said he didn’t believe Levy’s job as commissioner was a part-time role.
“I mean, he is now responsible for running the whole hospital system — that is a full-time job.”
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said he was comfortable with Levy holding both jobs.
“He’s working incredibly hard, he’s a high calibre, experienced professional. He’s exactly the person we need in as a commissioner.”
Luxon said Levy was doing “an exceptionally good job” despite not bringing relevant documents to a select committee to allow for scrutiny by the opposition.
“He’s inherited a system that’s a hell of a mess and he’s working his way through to make sure we understand the financial performance, the clinical performance and the operational performance,” the Prime Minister said.
“Many people do have two jobs and they work more than eight hours a day, that’s quite normal for many New Zealanders who work incredibly hard.
“He is one of those hard-working individuals who work seven days a week juggling a lot of responsibility and dealing with a very difficult situation.”
Additional reporting by Felix Desmarais