Coleman Jonathan: Financial Review Debate — In Committee 
Coleman Jonathan: Financial Review Debate — In Committee 
[Volume:630;Page:2442] 
Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN (National—Northcote) 
: 
 We hear that people are becoming sicker kids are becoming fatter diabetes is on the rise and obesity is at epidemic levels. We also hear the Minister in the chair the Hon Pete Hodgson has given his ministry a rating of 5½ out of 10 and we hear that $4 billion more than previously has been spent on health over the term of the Labour Government. I want the Minister to get up and take a call to answer one question: where has all the money gone? What has the $4 billion been spent on? What do we have to show for it? I can say now there is nothing to show for it. We are becoming sicker as a country and it is becoming harder to get an operation than previously. The health service is absolutely decaying. 
There is one place where we can say the health money is going. It is going into bureaucracy. There are 12000 hospital beds in New Zealand and there are 12000 bureaucrats to fill them. That is just outrageous but it is absolutely true. I was stunned when I heard that statistic. When I came into this Parliament I had heard that Mr Hodgson was a competent Minister. I had heard that he would do good things in health. Then I picked up my copy of  
New Zealand Doctor 
 and I saw that he rates himself as being only 5½ out of 10. He says he does not feel confident in the health portfolio and he does not even feel that he can get to grips with the ministry. Frankly if that is how the Minister feels about health in this country and about the health service what do the public think? 
I want the Minister in the chair to take a call to admit that and to explain why despite the lies that Labour tells the people of New Zealand we do not have a health service in this country that is free at the point of delivery. The Minister has to get up and admit to that. People are falling through the cracks of the health service. The fact is that people in this country need to have private health insurance. We have heard that time and time again. If someone goes to a hospital anywhere in New Zealand to have a cataract fixed a joint replaced or an ear nose or throat operation he or she will not get it. I was talking to an orthopaedic surgeon on Friday. He said North Shore Hospital does not have waiting lists. Why is that? It is because the hospital will not let anybody on to them. That is the actual truth. 
We have heard time and time again that if people do get on to a waiting list they have to be sicker than ever before. All the district health boards including Capital and Coast District Health Board are saying that. We had the board’s surgical services manager poor lady in front of us at the Health Committee last week. She went through a range of specialties under questioning in which one has to be sicker than ever before in order to get an operation—ear nose and throat surgery orthopaedics gynaecology and eye operations. I asked her whether one had to be sicker than ever before in order to get an operation in New Zealand and she said yes one does. That was a confession that the health service is failing New Zealanders. 
I ask the Minister Pete Hodgson what he will do about that. Frankly we see no evidence that under Labour the health system is providing the services people need. Would any member want to be a heart surgery patient in Auckland? Four years ago there were 800 heart operations done in Auckland; this year there will be 400. Frankly the message is that one has to be sicker than ever before in order to be operated on. The Minister has to tell us where all the money has gone. The Minister owes the people an explanation of that. 
People come to my constituency office every day and talk about the operations they cannot have done under the Labour Government. 
Hon Tony Ryall 
: Tell us about them. 
Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN 
: Look the situation is just appalling. I had a letter the other day from a World War II veteran who had served his country. He needs to have a cataract operation and cannot get it. That man has paid taxes all his life and people are having a whip-round at the RSA so that he can have his operation. Frankly I think that is disgusting. Another constituent a lady has a broken thumb. The Accident Compensation Corporation will not cover her surgery costs and North Shore Hospital will not even see her so that lady can no longer use her hand. She is left in limbo because she cannot afford to have private insurance cover. That lady used to be a Labour voter and she tells me she will never vote for Labour again. That is the case with a growing number of people out there. Labour has sold its voters the big lie that the health service is free at the point of delivery. We know that that is not the case. The Minister knows it as well and Labour members know it. 
The Labour MPs must be ashamed at what they have done to the health service. They must be ashamed that people in this country cannot get operations. Under this Government operations that people need will not be done. That is a failure.