Director general of health resigns

NEWS - eHealthNews.nz editor Rebecca McBeth 

Diana Sarfati has resigned from her role as director-general of health and will leave the Ministry of Health on February 21.

Sarfati, who was appointed in November 2022, says she has “appreciated the huge privilege, and responsibility that has come with leading the health system during a time of historic change within the sector”. 

“The challenge of restructuring and unifying an entire health system is difficult to summarise, and not to be underestimated. The people who I have worked with have given everything, every day.”

Sarfati spoke at HiNZ’s Digital Health Week conference in 2023 where she said that technology must be used to overcome, not widen gaps in healthcare access and outcomes and that all six MoH strategies have data and digital solutions woven through.

“Data, digital technology and innovation provides an incredible opportunity to make a difference within the health system,” she said.

The news comes following the resignation of Health New Zealand | Te Whatu Ora chief executive Fepulea’I Margie Apa who resigned from her role four months early to allow space for a “different leadership approach”.

Director of public health Nicholas Jones has also recently resigned.
Health Minister Simeon Brown thanked Sarfati for her service, saying she has had a long, distinguished career in health as a public health physician, cancer epidemiologist, and health services researcher.

“An experienced and respected leader, Sarfati has led the Ministry of Health during a challenging time as the last government’s reforms were being implemented,” he says.

PSA acting national secretary Fleur Fitzsimons says Sarfati’s resignation will “create more turmoil in an overstretched health system being put under further pressure by the Government’s demands for health spending cuts.

"Hard working public servants delivering health care like Sarfati are being asked to work miracles to somehow keep a groaning system working for New Zealanders," she says.

The country’s largest trade union has started litigation in the Employment Relations Authority focused on a proposal to cut the number of roles in Health NZ’s data and digital directorate by 47 percent.

The legal action says the proposal “overlooked or ignored the considerable increase in clinical risk which would follow the introduction of their proposals”.

The ERA action follows the PSA last week asking the Privacy Commissioner to urgently investigate Health NZ’s plans to cut digital services staff, which the union says threatens the security of sensitive patient data.

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