Sowry Roger: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers Questions to Members 
Sowry Roger: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers Questions to Members 
[Volume:613;Page:9932] 
9.  
Hon ROGER SOWRY (National) 
 to the  
Minister of Health 
: Will she be ensuring that the 20 recommendations made in a recent report into the death of a mental health patient in the care of Capital and Coast District Health Board will be followed up; if not why not? 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Minister of Health) 
: 
 Yes I am advised that most of the recommendations have already been implemented and the rest will be completed by December this year. 
Hon Roger Sowry 
: If the Minister has been advised and accepts the advice that most of the recommendations have been implemented why was it that Mr Chad Buckle was able to walk out of the Capital and Coast District Health Board’s mental health unit just a month after the hospital had committed itself both to reducing the number of exits from wards and to introducing a swipe card system; and is this the same ward that allowed a patient to walk out of it earlier in the year who was then killed after entering a tiger enclosure at Wellington Zoo? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: It is the same ward—ward 27 of Wellington Hospital. It is a ward with patients who are there under compulsory treatment orders. It also has voluntary patients who are allowed to leave because they are not committed patients. However the district health board has recognised that it did not have good enough surveillance. It has now put in place a number of measures to address that issue and make it more difficult for those patients who should not be leaving to leave. 
Darren Hughes 
: Has the provision in mental health services in the Capital and Coast District Health Board area improved? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: Yes I am advised by Dr Peter McGeorge that mental health services have improved in that district health board over the last 5 years. For example there has been a 26 percent increase in access to services a mental health helpline was set up in March last year and new services such as home-based care and respite care have been added. 
Hon Ken Shirley 
: Does the Minister accept that many of the mental health problems at the Capital and Coast District Health Board result from misdirection of resources and how does she justify the fact that the man she mentioned Dr Peter McGeorge the head of that mental health sector has commuted to work from Auckland to Wellington for the full duration of this Government’s administration? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: The decision to have Dr McGeorge come from Auckland to Wellington was made by the board and I think it probably reflects the fact that we have in New Zealand a shortage of highly skilled psychiatrists. However I would say that the flight of Dr McGeorge to Wellington would be able to give a lot more service to the people of New Zealand than that member flying from Auckland or wherever it is to come to Parliament. 
Hon Roger Sowry 
: How can the Minister claim in the House today that the mental health services for the Capital and Coast District Health Board have improved when Mr Buckle’s father phoned the staff the night before emailed the staff and then phoned them on the morning of his son’s death regarding his son’s mental state and when will the Minister institute a proper inquiry rather than accepting the manager’s word that the unit is safe when there have been two deaths which she seems to pass off lightly? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: I certainly do not pass any death off lightly. I need to say to that member if he is going to look at reports into mental health problems there were 70 of them before I became Minister. A proper review was carried out not a manager’s report. It was the review that Mr Buckle was talking about this morning. Maybe the member missed that.