Stewart Barbara: Estimates Debate — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeStewart Barbara: Estimates Debate — In Committee[Sitting date: 28 July 2015. Volume:707;Page:5411. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]BARBARA STEWART (NZ First): I am very pleased to take a call in the estimates debate. We continue to be astonished in New Zealand First at the lack of preventative programmes rolling out across the country. The Government does not appear to have a plan for serving the needs of the current population let alone future generations and it is a worry. This is an issue that is seriously affecting the health of New Zealanders. Non-communicable diseases are on the increase and we need a fence at the top of the cliff rather an ambulance at the bottom. We know that that ambulance at the bottom is slowly breaking down. We want the Government to be forward-looking and it was quite interesting when we met the Minister of Health to catch up with the lack of programmes that have a preventative focus. We know that the need for health care is going to increase dramatically over the next few years so we need that preventative focus—absolutely essential. Our nation’s health is at critically poor levels with ever-increasing numbers of people suffering chronic illnesses and non-communicable diseases and that is a shame.There is an urgent need for more research into cancer prevention and treatment. We are falling drastically behind Australia in our treatment of cancer. For all cancers New Zealanders’ survival rate at 5 years after diagnosis is 4 percent lower than that of Australia. The Government states that reducing the burden of cancer is one of its top priority areas yet this is an area that remains drastically underfunded. We were very pleased to hear the Minister say that there was going to be a new roll-out of a cancer strategy. We would like to see the bowel cancer strategy increasing and the roll-out of the screening programmes increasing. We cannot afford to wait until 2017 when the Waitematā trial finishes when we have 1200 Kiwis dying every year from bowel cancer. Of course that has a drastic effect on families and the hospital system. Skin cancer—we have the highest death rate of skin cancer in the world and this does need to be urgently addressed.Obesity—our obesity rate is continuing. We are now third in the world rapidly closing in on Mexico and the USA. We are an outdoors country. It is really shameful for us to have this rate of obesity. Critical health services—the ambulance service needs to have more funding. We know for a fact that people are complaining about the length of time they are having to wait for ambulances. The ambulances provide a very critical role and we need them there when we need them most. We expect them to come. So extra funding is actually required in this area.When we look at elective surgery the need for elective surgery is increasing. We get more and more people coming to our door saying that they are on the waiting list. They are waiting and they are waiting and they do not want to wait any longer. It is a shame. We know that despite the increase of $98 million for elective surgeries that is not going to cope with even the current needs. There are far too many people who go to the hospital wait to have an appointment and then are told to go home. They are even called in for scans do not get those scans go home and have to come back the next day or the next week when they can get an appointment.We all know that we have got an ageing population and of course this is going to mean a really sharp increase in all the diseases associated with ageing: Alzheimer’s osteoporosis macular degeneration and type 2 diabetes. We know that the population is set to double. Why are we not doing something about the planning and investment in this area to try to meet the needs that we know are actually coming?Today I had a visitor who is very interested in rural health. Rural health is an area that has been sadly underfunded by the Government. The Healthy Bastards group came to see me. They focus on men’s health. They cannot even get an appointment with the Minister to discuss the work they are doing.