Ryall Tony: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers Questions to Members 
Ryall Tony: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers Questions to Members 
[Volume:633;Page:4549] 
10.  
Hon TONY RYALL (National—Bay of Plenty) 
 to the  
Minister of Health 
: What reports if any has he received on the impact on patients of being removed from waiting lists for elective surgery or specialist appointments without having been treated or seen by a specialist? 
Hon PETE HODGSON (Minister of Health) 
: 
 About 97 percent of patients are seen by specialists but the 3 percent who are not are absolutely entitled to feel let down. This practice has been going on for years and the Ministry of Health and the Government want it to stop. That said I say that if a district health board cannot see someone in a timely way then it is better that they be seen by a general practitioner than by no one at all. 
Hon Tony Ryall 
: Has the Minister seen the comments of the clinical director of one of the largest general practices in the North Island that doctors fear that cancers will be missed and go untreated as thousands of patients are refused specialist appointments at hospitals around the country many with symptoms and family histories that suggest they could have cancer; how is that consistent with the Government’s Cancer Control Strategy? 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: Yes I have seen those reports and indeed I have seen correspondence between the doctor involved and the district health board. I think it is important to advise the House that Dr Saxe himself—the person in question—has said that any patient who presents with symptoms of cancer would be seen in our public hospitals right away. That is not something that is true everywhere in the world but that is why the New Zealand health system is a system we can be proud of. 
Maryan Street 
: What are our district health boards doing to get on top of the issue of returning people to their general practitioner unseen by specialists and when can we expect to see some improvement? 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: The House will be aware that district health boards have been under instruction to make progress on that for over a year. My hope is that most district health boards will have a fair and an effective system in place by 30 September. 
Hon Tony Ryall 
: How can it be consistent with the Government’s own Cancer Control Strategy and its focus on early detection that a clinical director is reporting that patients over 40 with a strong family history of bowel cancer cannot get screened cancer patients referred by a surgeon for specialist follow-up have been returned to general practitioner care without further tests and a man in his 50s with blood in his urine cannot get referred for diagnostic tests; how will sending those patients back to the very people who sent them to the hospital in the first place deal with their issues? 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: The member raises a variety of questions some of which are covered in correspondence between the doctor and the district health board. The member may not have seen that correspondence. The long and short of it is that some of those things can be managed in the primary sector some should be seen in the secondary sector and we need to prioritise accordingly. 
Hon Tony Ryall 
: What would he say to the woman who needs a telescopic test to see whether she has stomach cancer and who has been culled off a hospital waiting list even though there is a history of stomach cancer in her family? 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: Leaving aside the nature of the test I will say that anyone in this country who is suspected of having cancer will get treatment in a New Zealand hospital. I say again that that is not always the case around the world. This is a system that we can be proud of. 
Dr Jonathan Coleman 
: Has the Minister even read his own Cancer Control Strategy; if so would he tell us what it says about the early detection of cancer? 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: The Cancer Control Strategy is very heavy on the prevention of cancer— 
Hon Tony Ryall 
: Have you read it? 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: Indeed I have read it. The Cancer Control Strategy will ensure that the continued improvements made in this country in relation to various cancers will include early detection. That is why for example the breast-screening programme roll-out has increased the number of women who have been screened for that particular cancer by 40 percent in 2 years. Let us have some credit for that. 
Dr Jonathan Coleman 
: What is the point of a primary health care strategy that aims to increase people’s access to general practitioners if the Minister will not then give general practitioners the tools to diagnose cancer at an early and curable stage? 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: I say to the member again that our secondary services are seeing more people—a lot more people—in both medical and surgical specialities than ever before. What is happening however is that district health boards have got into the habit of over-promising and that has meant that about 3 percent of New Zealanders have been returned to their general practitioner unseen which I am not happy about. If the member would like to hang on to his comments for just a small period of time and stop the continuing running battle that does not make a lot of sense he may like to reflect on the fact that a former Minister of Health in the National Government has just asked across the House how we can prevent cancer—he wants to know whether it is preventable. That gives us some idea of the capability that exists on the Opposition side of the House! I say to the member that this country has a good Cancer Control Strategy. Not only is that the case but this is the first one it has ever had and it came under this Labour Government.