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: 19 November 2013. Volume:695;Page:14766. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]9.Hon ANNETTE KING (Labour—Rongotai) to theMinister of Health: How many patients in the year to June 2013 who have been assessed as needing an operation but are unable to receive it within 5 months have been told they will not be receiving an operation at this time?Hon TONY RYALL (Minister of Health): As the member will know from her time I am unable to provide this information as it has never been collected nationally by the Ministry of Health and the vast majority of district health boards advise that they do not collect this data or that there were no such patients. What I can advise the member is that the number of patients who have been told they will receive elective surgery and have received it has increased by 40000 more patients this last year compared with 5 years ago. This increase in procedures means district health boards have been able to reduce the number of patients waiting at June 2013 from 7000 in June 2005 under that member—Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. We all know what the question was. The Minister said he could not answer it said he did not have the information and then proceeded to answer some question that was never asked in the first place. He should have been stopped in his tracks.Mr SPEAKER: I think on this occasion the member has got a fair point. The answer was certainly lengthy enough. I invite the Hon Annette King to ask a supplementary question.Hon Annette King: If as he claimed last week and again today the ministry is not counting the number of people rejected from waiting lists because they cannot get their operation within 6 months and if as he said last week it is “incredibly difficult to measure” how does he know that only 11 people are waiting longer than 6 months for their operation as of June 2013 which he has claimed for months now?Hon TONY RYALL: It is quite simple because although the member is trying to deliberately confuse the people of New Zealand there are two separate figures. One is how many people were on the waiting list at a certain date. She keeps referring to people who did not even get on the waiting list—two separate figures.Hon Annette King: Well in light of that answer who should the public believe about the number of people being dumped off waiting lists: the specialists who deal daily with people who are in pain and who claim that his claims are nothing more than double-speak bearing no resemblance to reality or the chief executive officer of Hawke’s Bay District Health Board KevinSnee who says that district health boards are dealing with “a shortage of cash for orthopaedic operations” and “are struggling to meet demand” or the Minister who says “I [won’t] stand any criticism”?Hon TONY RYALL: Well the one person they should not believe is the person who was in a Government that cut 30000 people off hospital waiting lists and is in a party that—Mr SPEAKER: Order! That is a relatively political answer but it does not actually address the question that was asked. I can have it repeated if the Minister likes.Hon TONY RYALL: They can certainly believe the answers that are provided by me and the Ministry of Health. More people are getting operations and they are getting them faster. We are not culling 30000 people off hospital waiting lists like that member opposite did when she was in Government.Shane Ardern: What reports has the Minister seen about waiting times for patients in particular in the MidCentral District Health Board and the Waikato District Health Board?Hon TONY RYALL: Well I saw a report last week from the Opposition health spokesperson where she stood in this Parliament and claimed that there were 376 patients waiting longer than 6 months at Waikato and 161 patients waiting at MidCentral. Those numbers were a complete misrepresentation of the facts as none of those people were on a waiting list despite what Mrs King claimed. Of course this follows up on a document sent to theTimaru Herald where the numbers had been inexplicably changed in handwriting. Mrs King has yet to explain why she did this.Hon Annette King: Are the views of clinicians still important to him as he used to claim; if so will he listen to Mr Bruce Hodgson an orthopaedic surgeon who recently wrote to a general practitioner saying that the waiting list system is being run in a clearly manipulated process and that “he can’t see patients now because there are too many waiting to carry out their surgery within 5 months.”?Hon TONY RYALL: I have not seen that report at all. Based on that member’s previous behaviour in this House I would have to actually check the context and the letter. But what I can say on the matter of orthopaedic surgery is that more New Zealanders are getting orthopaedic surgery and they are getting it faster than ever before. A record 23000 patients received orthopaedic surgery last year. Canterbury District Health Board does have capacity to do more but unlike the previous Government we will not be cutting 1000 orthopaedic patients from the Canterbury waiting list like that Government did in 2006.Hon Annette King: Has he read the editorial in theSouthland Times today which says that there is no excuse for the Government keeping “truly crappy records of the level of unmet need.” in elective surgery and that it is not “morally defensible … to trivialise the suffering of … New Zealanders” as he did last week or is this another case of him not standing criticism?Hon TONY RYALL: I have read that editorial from a small provincial newspaper but I have also read the editorial in the ChristchurchPress which when referring to the Government’s performance—[Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! I am having trouble hearing the answer because of the noise. Can the Minister please continue.Hon TONY RYALL: I have also read the editorial in a very substantial provincial newspaper the ChristchurchPress which when referring to the massive increase in elective surgery under our Government says: “Those are impressive figures and it would be mean-spirited to downplay them.” What a jolly good editorial that paragraph was.Hon Annette King: I seek leave to table a letter from Bruce Hodgson orthopaedic surgeon to a general practitioner which says exactly what I said—Mr SPEAKER: Order! Leave is sought to table that particular letter from an orthopaedic surgeon. Is there any objection to that course of action? It will be tabled.Document by leave laid on the Table of the House.Hon Annette King: I seek leave to table 16 letters from 16 district health boards which all send these letters out to patients saying that their surgeon recommends them for surgery but it cannot be offered to them at this time making up the waiting list—Mr SPEAKER: Order! That is enough of a description. Leave is sought to table 16 letters from district health boards sent to patients. Is there any objection? There is none. They can be tabled.Documents by leave laid on the Table of the House.