Association of Salaried Medical Specialists, Toi Mata Hauora - ASMS

19/06/2026

The latest in the Health NZ board minutes saga: New board chair for Te Whatu Ora Mark Darrow has committed to greater transparency in an interview with The Specialist. Since then, HNZ has chosen to release 'board summaries' rather than minutes, but - while they're not 'redacted', we're not sure this type of filtering counts as transparency...
For the full story, check out the latest edition of The Specialist at the link in our bio.

17/06/2026

ASMS' message to meddling ministers: When it comes to health and education, this Government should leave it to the experts.

16/06/2026

Behold: the brain drain, doctor edition. Data supplied to ASMS from the Australian Department of Health and Ageing shows movement over the past decade of NZ-trained doctors who newly registered in Australia.

This is exactly why, at the ASMS conference last year, a guest from our sister union in Australia (ASMOF) thanked the Health Minister for training Australia's next generation of doctors. It doesn't have to be this way, minister.

12/06/2026

Bin the Bill for alcohol sale reforms! ASMS National President Katie Ben made a submission today to the Justice Select Committee saying if the Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Improving Alcohol Regulation) Amendment Bill passes, our hospitals will likely see a jump in:
- trauma and alcohol related ED admissions
- elective surgery waiting lists
- cancers and people needing cancer treatment
- assaults in ED

05/06/2026

The ASMS-led campaign to address the crisis at Nelson Hospital was recognised last night at the Public Relations institute of New Zealand awards. A huge effort from the comms team and Jess Roden from 1News but, most importantly, the patients, doctors and nurses who raised their voices and pushed for change. This included hundreds of Nelsonians turning up for the Hands around the Hospital event.

There is still plenty of work to do, but we can say tangible and meaningful change resulted from this campaign, and that's evidence of the power of communities, unions and media pressure.

29/05/2026

What this Budget does for health:
- Keeps the light on

What it fails to do:
- Rebuild collapsed core health services - like the gastroenterology department at MidCentral
- Seriously invest in the clinical workforce to avoid further services collapsing
- Improve waiting lists as they are now
- Staff the hospitals it plans to build

ASMS Executive Director Sarah Dalton unpacked some of this with .co.nz's Michael Morrah today:

Association of Salaried Medical Specialists Executive Director, Sarah Dalton on the funding uplift.

28/05/2026

Meanwhile as Budget 2026 offers redundancy for thousands of public servants...
Via

28/05/2026

Budget 2026 adds $5.5b for health over four years. That sounds like a lot - but all that will really do is keep the lights on. ASMS Executive Director Sarah Dalton’s gave .official's Jack Tame a quick rundown of our first impressions (spoiler, they’re not rosy)

19/05/2026

.union journalist Rachel tries her hand at robotic surgery with just 60 seconds of training. It does not go well. But the new machine is giving skilled surgical hands powerful new tools for better patient outcomes. Read more about it in next month’s The Specialist Magazine.

01/05/2026

Happy Friday from Timaru's happy senior doctors! It's not always gloomy over here in health ans we were glad to see caught up with a couple of the Timaru doctors who were featured in the Wall Street Journal last week on why they chose to leave the US for Aotearoa and are loving it.
But (there is almost always a but) as a new report from ASMS finds, NZ does a bad job of holding on to these doctors and many don't get inductions into how our health system works and what to expect. See the full report at the link in our bio.