Attributable to Martin Keogh, Te Waipounamu Deputy Chief Executive

Health New Zealand | Te Whatu Ora is delighted to confirm that approximately $3.87 million in Holidays Act remediation payments have been processed today for South Canterbury staff.

This is an important milestone in getting these payments to our staff.

The money is expected to be in the bank accounts of 919 staff owed a remediation payment by tomorrow morning.

Staff receiving payments work across the health system and include nurses, doctors, allied health staff, health care assistants, cleaners and administrators.

We are very pleased for our staff that payments have been processed today and our South Canterbury staff are receiving the money they are owed.

Resolving Holidays Act Remediation payments for these staff has been extremely complex and time-consuming work requiring a large amount of manual processing and specialist skills.

Nationally we have about 90,000 current employees plus 130,000 former employees covered by the Holidays Act remediation project, for the period from 1 May 2010 to the present day.

South Canterbury is the ninth payroll nationally to have the payments processed to current staff with Auckland, Counties Manukau, Waitematā, Hawke’s Bay and four former shared services (HealthAlliance, Health Partnerships, Health Source and Northern Region Alliance) also completed.

The payment to South Canterbury staff takes the total amount paid so far nationally to over $257 million across 35,200 current employees.

We aim to complete the Holidays Act remediation payments to all current employees by July 2025. The first payments to former employees will start in early 2025.