8. Question No. 8—HealthDr SHANE RETI (National—Whangarei) to the Associate Minister of HealthQuestion No. 8—Health8. Dr SHANE RETI (National—Whangarei) to the Associate Minister of Health: Does she stand by all her statements policies and actions regarding vaccination and the measles outbreak?Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Associate Minister of Health): Tēnā koe Mr Speaker. Yes in the context they were given.Dr Shane Reti: Can she confirm the report on the Northern Advocate front page this morning that General medical practices in Northland have run out of measles vaccine making tens of thousands of people vulnerable"?SPEAKER: No. Ask a question that relates to the primary.Dr Shane Reti: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The primary talks about the measles outbreak and vaccinations.SPEAKER: Yes yes and just saying "measles"—the substance of the question is "Does she stand by all her statements policies and actions" so the member has to relate his supplementary to that. Just having the word "measles" in it isn't good enough.Dr Shane Reti: Can she confirm the report on the Northern Advocate front page this morning that "General medical practices in Northland have run out of measles vaccine making tens of thousands of people vulnerable"?SPEAKER: No. None of those relate to a statement or action of the Minister or a policy of the Minister. It's not hard to get the question right. The member is intellectually capable of doing it; I just want him to have another crack.Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. If we are going to get into the semantics of it the question asks very clearly "Does she stand by all her statements policies and actions regarding vaccination and the measles outbreak?" We've heard twice this week in the House from health Ministers that there's no problem with vaccinations so when you have a headline in a local newspaper that completely disputes that how can it be out of order in line with this question to ask if the statement is still being agreed with?SPEAKER: I just want to say to the member: if Ministers had said that which I don't accept then I'm sure that Dr Reti would be capable of relating that statement in his question or a supplementary. He hasn't.Dr Shane Reti: How do her policies align with the report on the Northern Advocate front page this morning that "General medical practices in Northland have run out of measles vaccine making tens of thousands of people vulnerable"?SPEAKER: That's not quite there but close enough.Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: I've been advised today that the regional store was able to fill all measles mumps and rubella vaccine (MMR) orders that had been placed by GPs in Northland and that stock of MMR is still available in the regional store. I have been assured by the Director-General of Health that there's no supply issue when it comes to vaccines for managing the outbreak in Auckland as well as ensuring that we can maintain the childhood immunisation schedule across the country. What happened on Monday was that there was a stocktake undertaken because there's been unprecedented demand for and administration of vaccines in the past two weeks and what that revealed is that while there's no supply issue there was a distribution issue and so the Ministry of Health alongside local medical officers of health local primary health organisations and the DHB are actively ensuring that there is sufficient vaccine everywhere where there needs to be in Northland.Dr Shane Reti: What advice has she received on the dire measles vaccine supply expressed in communications from Waikato DHB to health professionals yesterday?Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: Exactly as I just said the Director-General of Health has assured me there's no issue with supply but the stocktake revealed that it was not evenly distributed and so there is active work going on right now to ensure that all of the vaccines are available where they need to be administered and in particular that we're ensuring that all children who are the most vulnerable to measles are able to receive all of their vaccines. In the last two weeks thousands of vaccines have been administered each day which is significantly more than average and so that would probably explain why some GPs were low on stock. But all of the orders have been filled in Northland and I don't have the specifics on Waikato but I can get them for him. Dr Shane Reti: What does she say to 1.3 million New Zealanders aged between 30 and 50 who are no longer being targeted to receive the measles vaccine and when did this recommendation change?Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: Yesterday the Director-General of Health announced to give clarity to primary health organisations that it was very important that we ensure that we maintain the childhood immunisation schedule and that the most at-risk people are children; they are the most vulnerable to the disease the most likely to be hospitalised. Although there's no shortage of vaccines it does require staff and others and so necessarily because we can't administer vaccines to everyone in the country within a period of just a few short weeks we are ensuring that no child is missing their vaccine and that all those who are most vulnerable are going to get their vaccine. But I assure the member there is no shortage of vaccines. We simply want to make sure that the most vulnerable people are not missing out given that there has been unprecedented demand for vaccines in the past two weeks.Dr Shane Reti: Can she confirm the Government will announce that pharmacists will be able to vaccinate for measles as we called on the Government to urgently do back on 2 September?Hon Julie Anne Genter: Sorry Mr Speaker could I ask that the member repeat the beginning of the question. I just missed the beginning.SPEAKER: Yes and the member only needs to do the first part of it because the other part was superfluous. Dr Shane Reti: Can she confirm that the Government will announce that pharmacists will be able to vaccinate for measles?SPEAKER: "Can the Minister" in this case. Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: Thank you Mr Speaker. I can confirm that the Government is actively and urgently exploring the opportunity for pharmacists to provide the MMR vaccine but unfortunately contrary to the member's assertion allowing pharmacists to vaccinate for MMR is not a 30-second policy. Funding reimbursement classification and record-keeping all need to be considered and we want this policy to be implemented safely."