King Annette: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to MinistersText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeKing Annette: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers[Sitting date: 11 June 2013. Volume:691;Page:10910. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]8.Hon ANNETTE KING (Labour—Rongotai)to theMinister of Health: Does he stand by all his statements on health; if not why not?Hon TONY RYALL (Minister of Health):Yes within the context that they were given. This Government has increased funding of health by an average of $500 million a year but has always said that district health boards will sometimes have to slow scale or stop programmes to meet the changing needs of New Zealanders.Hon Annette King: Does he stand by his statement: “Many hospitals struggle to even see patients with immediate or imminent threat to life or limb.”; if not why is it now acceptable for 3900 patients in one district health board alone who were assessed as being needed to be seen within 10 minutes in an emergency department not being seen in that time although their conditions could include serious head injuries massive bleeding or suspected heart attacks?Hon TONY RYALL: The member of course is referring to some triage times that are measured in hospital emergency departments. What we know is that performance across district health boards within emergency departments has improved dramatically from the time when that member opposite was the Minister and people waited in the North Shore Hospital under bright fluorescent lights on trolleys for 3 days on end.Hon Annette King: Why is it now acceptable for 25000 patients in one district health board alone in the last year not to be seen within the best-practice benchmark of 30 minutes at the emergency department even though they had what he called in Opposition “quite serious conditions”?Hon TONY RYALL: I am sure that number was a lot worse under the previous Government. What I can tell the member is that the time she is quoting measures the time that people wait until they see a doctor or a senior nurse. What this Government measures in its hospital emergency department waiting-time which was recommended by clinicians was how long it takes until patients are treated discharged or returned home. We do not think it is acceptable that patients wait days on end on hospital emergency department trolleys under bright fluorescent lights as happened when Annette King was Minister of Health.Hon Annette King: Why did he dump the public reporting of triage times in emergency departments—something that he called in Opposition “best-practice benchmarks” and which are still used by Australian emergency medicine—before a suitable replacement had been developed?Hon TONY RYALL: A suitable replacement is out there. It is called the publication of the hospital emergency department waiting-time performance against the 6-hour target to be treated. I think my response to any question from Annette King on hospital emergency department waiting times involving patients is summed up in three words: North Shore Hospital where people waited 3 days on end under bright fluorescent lights. This Government is providing more patients with faster treatment sooner.Hon Annette King: Why do patients have to wait until 2015 before district health boards meet his new so-called gold standard of 6 weeks’ wait for an ultrasound or a magnetic resonance imaging scan when doctors are saying that some of the current waiting-times pose a danger to patients right now?Hon TONY RYALL: I did read some of those comments in the media last week. What I would say is that the Government is making that information available to the public; it was not previously. It contrasts with for example when that member was aMinister of Health when 1000 patients in Christchurch were waiting more than 9 months for a magnetic imaging scan. When that member was Minister of Health she had 500 patients in Christchurch waiting more than 1 year. When she was Minister of Health they had patients waiting for CT scans—1300 patients waiting more than 8 weeks. And when she was Minister of Health—Mr SPEAKER: Order! That is quite a sufficiently long answer.Hon Annette King: I seek leave to table a 2007 press release by Tony Ryall claiming many hospitals—Mr SPEAKER: Order! That press release will be freely available to members. It will still be available.Hon Annette King: That was 2007.Mr SPEAKER: Well the easiest way to put it is I will put the leave. There is a 2007 press release by the Hon Tony Ryall. Is there any objection to it being tabled?Hon Gerry Brownlee: Absolutely. I’ve got it framed on my wall!Mr SPEAKER: There we go.Hon Annette King: I seek leave to table a report in theNew Zealand Herald of 2007—Mr SPEAKER: No that is—[Interruption ] Order! That is definitely something that members can get back if they want.Hon Annette King: In 2007?Mr SPEAKER: Yes they can.