Dr Sunita Azariah A leading sexual health specialist says figures supplied to GayNZ.com regarding changes to the Auckland Sexual Health Service staffing are "deliberately misleading," significantly under-representing the scale of proposed cuts to specialist staff available for sexual health issues. Earlier this month Alex Pimm, the Auckland District Health Board's General Manager, Community and Long Term Conditions Directorate, sought to reassure gay, bi and transgender people that their access would not be adversely affected by a suggested twenty percent cut in the specialist staff at the service. He said suggested changes to clinics in Greenlane, Glenfield, Henderson and Manukau would see the number of sexual health specialists attached to the clinics dropped from 6.5 full-time equivalents to 5.2, a 20% cut. This, he said, is in line with a drop in the need for those staff experienced since model of care changes were instituted a year ago. However, Dr Sunita Azariah says Pimm's figures appear to refer to the net full-time equivalent staff member changes across both the sexual health service and the sexual assault service. “The sexual assault service has been allocated 0.5 additional SMO full-time equivalents,” she says. “However the sexual health service and the sexual assault service are two completely separate services and should have been service sized separately. It is deliberately misleading of him to have combined the medical FTE for both services as it makes the net loss look smaller.” She says the correct figures for the proposal show a cut 1.8 FTE from the sexual health service from the existing 4.9 FTE senior medical officers. This is an almost 37% cut specifically to the sexual health service. As ADHB has been consulting on the process regarding the proposed cuts and a final decision has yet to be announced.