{"id":640303,"date":"2026-10-24T21:10:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-24T21:10:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/640303\/"},"modified":"2026-10-24T21:10:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-24T21:10:10","slug":"labour-setting-up-starship-visit-despite-chris-hipkins-saying-it-would-be-inappropriate-amid-election-campaign","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/640303\/","title":{"rendered":"Labour setting up Starship visit despite Chris Hipkins saying it would be inappropriate amid election campaign"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cIt would be inappropriate for them to meet with us while we\u2019re out on the campaign trail and I\u2019m not going to put them in that position. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey have to be above the political process. As soon as a government is formed though, I\u2019d be sitting down talking to them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"StarshipStarship Children\u2019s Hospital is in Auckland. Photo \/ File <\/p>\n

The Herald has seen correspondence between Hipkins\u2019 office and Health New Zealand showing Hipkins\u2019 team had asked on Monday if Hipkins and health spokeswoman Dr Ayesha Verrall could visit Starship on Tuesday, two days before Hipkins made his comments to media. <\/p>\n

The request from Labour referenced \u201cconcerns about staffing pressures at the hospital<\/a>\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe are looking to better understand these issues and what can be done to address them,\u201d the email read. <\/p>\n

A member of Health NZ\u2019s executive team wrote back, informing Hipkins\u2019 office a Tuesday visit was not possible but was happy to discuss other dates. <\/p>\n

A reply from Hipkins\u2019 office, which was sent less than an hour prior to Hipkins making his comments on Thursday, requested a visit on Tuesday next week. Health NZ also said that date was not possible but later suggested times later in the week. <\/p>\n

Asked yesterday if Labour had expressed interest in visiting Starship, a party spokesperson said Verrall\u2019s office had approached Starship requesting a visit but it was declined so Verrall and Hipkins \u201cmet oncology nurses offsite\u201d. They acknowledged Starship had offered other times to visit. <\/p>\n

Following further questions about the meaning of Hipkins\u2019 comments, the spokesperson acknowledged they could have been clearer.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile it could have been clearer, Chris Hipkins was responding to questions regarding what fix a Labour government would put in place with Starship. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhile it is common and appropriate for politicians to visit hospitals in a campaign to hear of the day-to-day workings and pressure points, it would not be appropriate to engage with Starship staff offering to fix the situation from Opposition.\u201d<\/p>\n

The spokesperson said Labour had contacted Health Minister Simeon Brown\u2019s office about visiting Starship to hear about reported issues. Brown\u2019s office referred the request to Health NZ, the spokesperson said, and it\u2019s understood Labour still intends to visit during the campaign. <\/p>\n

\"LabourLabour leader Chris Hipkins wants to sufficiently support Starship to ensure the hospital has no staffing issues. Photo \/ Stephen Barker<\/p>\n

Also in Thursday\u2019s stand-up, Hipkins said he was motivated to sufficiently resource Starship after hearing impactful stories from staff who worked there. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m just not going to accept that kids who are receiving cancer treatment should be being treated in hallways, in waiting rooms, because there aren\u2019t enough staff, it\u2019s just not OK,\u201d Hipkins said on Thursday.<\/p>\n

Labour clarified Hipkins had been told of \u201cchildren being administered chemotherapy in a waiting room\u201d in his offsite discussions with oncology nurses. <\/p>\n

The Herald asked Labour whether Hipkins was also told of treatment in \u201challways\u201d as he claimed on Thursday but did not get a response. <\/p>\n

In response to Hipkins\u2019 claims, Health NZ said in a statement: \u201cWe can confirm no children are being treated in corridors at Starship Hospital.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Herald asked whether such treatment had occurred previously but was told by Health NZ a response wasn\u2019t likely to come until Tuesday.<\/p>\n

It comes after Timaru dad Shaun Todd accused Brown and other politicians of politicising child cancer this week following revelations that treatments had been delayed by up to a week on the oncology ward at Starship due to severe nursing shortages. <\/p>\n

Brown agreed to meet parents whose children were receiving cancer treatment on Friday<\/a> after one mother posted on Facebook about her family\u2019s experience. <\/p>\n

Adam Pearse is the Deputy Political Editor and part of the NZ Herald\u2019s Press Gallery team based at Parliament in Wellington. He has worked for NZME since 2018, reporting for the Northern Advocate in Whang\u0101rei and the Herald in Auckland.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cIt would be inappropriate for them to meet with us while we\u2019re out on the campaign trail and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":640304,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[534,5195,1738,4749,3276,127,100174,2837,5903,13480,2241,16133,702,6721,13489,111,43,139,69,2687,62239,9833,48782,49191,5147,9100,810,9863,6730],"class_list":["post-640303","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-amid","tag-be","tag-campaign","tag-childrens","tag-chris","tag-despite","tag-discuss","tag-during","tag-election","tag-hipkins","tag-hospital","tag-inappropriate","tag-it","tag-labour","tag-leader","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-saying","tag-scheduling","tag-setting","tag-shortages","tag-staffing","tag-starship","tag-such","tag-up","tag-visit","tag-would"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640303","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=640303"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640303\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/640304"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=640303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=640303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=640303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}