Scott Lynda: General Debates 
Scott Lynda: General Debates 
[Volume:609;Page:6157] 
Dr LYNDA SCOTT (NZ National—Kaikoura) 
: 
 Yes that is right I am a geriatrician. I am a doctor and I want to talk about coronary artery bypass grafting. I want to talk about that because patients who need coronary artery bypass grafting are probably our most fragile patients—the patients most at risk of death when things go wrong. That is why it ends up in the media. If we mess up the system for patients needing coronary artery bypass grafting then we have deaths on our hands. Patients die from heart disease every day of the week.  
But I want to talk about the Capital and Coast District Health Board. Today the Minister said Labour had no ideological objection to public-private partnerships. I would like Annette King to tell us of just one new public-private partnership that has begun with her district health boards since this Government took office. Just tell me one! There is no answer from across the House. Can anybody here can think of one? No there is dead silence. All that has happened is that contracts have been cancelled—just as Wakefield Hospital’s contract with Wellington Hospital was cancelled.  
A system was set up last year in which $1.7 million of cardiac funding was kept by Capital and Coast—not spent on cardiac surgery spent on other things and patients died. That was just dismissed. Capital and Coast said in its annual plan that it was an achievement to have bought all surgery in-house. The Minister quotes figures that say that the number of surgical procedures has increased. Of course they have increased because she does not take into account the ones that were transferred from Wakefield Hospital. She does not ever count the ones that were done at Wakefield Hospital. The numbers for coronary artery bypass grafting have stayed very similar. What has happened next is that Capital and Coast has not been able to keep up with its cardiac waiting list so as to deliver within 6 months. It changed the intensive care bed policy and booked all electives into intensive care. If a hospital does that acute patients will always bump elective patients. The hospital should know that and have a contingency plan for it.  
John Russell was not cancelled once but twice. I heard Lianne Dalziel say that we should listen to the patients. Well we cannot listen to that patient because he has died but his fiancée has had plenty to say on the matter. She is appalled at the status and level of care. It shows a decline in our public hospital system. It shows the non-responsiveness of a public hospital system. Do members know that John Russell was told to go home by the patient next to him? He woke up and could not find a nurse. The patient next to him said: “You have got to go home now.” Nobody came to check him out. He went home the second time rather than being transferred to a private hospital for his surgery.  
The reason I go on about private hospitals is that acute surgery does not impact on elective surgery at private hospitals because they do not do a lot of acute surgery. A patient can book surgery and be certain that the surgery will go ahead. The Minister has said that Labour does not have a problem with public-private partnerships but she appoints the board chairman and members of the board and that board has problems with private care. Because of that it cancelled Wakefield Hospital’s contract and therefore someone like John Russell was twice cancelled for coronary artery bypass grafting—a man of 42 and father of two—rather than being moved to a private hospital where he could have had his surgery and been alive today.  
The other thing that has happened is that the points system has gone up. At Christchurch Dunedin and also at Capital and Coast the points one needs for surgery have increased. That is not acceptable. The Minister of Health does nothing about that. She will not have an inquiry. She is the invisible Minister of Health. 
The debate having concluded the motion lapsed.