Coleman Jonathan: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
Coleman Jonathan: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
[Volume:640;Page:10433] 
Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN (National—Northcote) 
: 
 One of the most disturbing media images we saw over the period of the adjournment was a photograph of a dishevelled elderly man pleading with the Prime Minister and tugging at her hem—a man dressed perhaps somewhat inappropriately in a leather jacket. I looked closely at this picture and thought that the man was perhaps a member of the New Zealand public who was pleading for access to the health care he had been denied under this Government. When I looked a little more closely I saw that this person was the Minister of Health pleading for his job. There is no doubt that under this Minister health has turned into a disaster zone for the Labour Government. It was in a safe pair of hands under Annette King but things have gone from bad to worse since Minister Hodgson has taken over. 
I look forward to the Minister getting up and taking a call today because I want him to explain how the extra $1.5 billion that the Government’s Budget is to put into health will be spent. When I talk to people in my Northcote electorate—people on the North Shore—they tell me that when they go to North Shore Hospital they find that things are absolutely no better than they were 8 years ago when Labour came to power. So the Minister really has to get up and explain to us why spending on health has doubled from $6 billion to almost $12 billion a year but when people go to an accident and emergency department in New Zealand now they are in a situation that is actually worse than the one they were in 8 years ago. 
I have been looking at the situation at North Shore Hospital with my colleague Wayne Mapp the MP for North Shore because we could no longer ignore what is happening in the accident and emergency department there. Elderly people are having to spend up to 26 hours sitting on trolleys in the accident and emergency department unable to get a bed in a hospital ward. The Minister will not dispute—in fact I think he would be foolish to do so—that the conditions in the accident and emergency waiting area in that hospital are not up to scratch. Patients are sitting there without being able to get hold of adequate pain care. The doctors and nurses are not to blame; they are working in very very trying conditions. But I say to the Minister that the basic thing is that although this Government has doubled spending on health conditions are not getting any better in our hospitals. People are not getting more elective surgery and things have not improved. I am sure that if the Minister gets up he will go on about cheaper doctors’ visits but I want him to tell us how hospital care has actually improved for the people of New Zealand. 
I would like to get him up so he can tell us how things are improving in the area of mental health. We are now spending $1 billion a year on mental health which is an increase of 66 percent since this Government came to office yet the Ministry of Health in its annual report tells us that young people Maori older people and Pacific Island people are not getting access to the mental health care services they need. I think that is a real indictment because the theme that runs through health care under this Government is that although more and more is being spent on health the results are not improving. The Minister cannot tell us that things are any better than when he got the job. In fact they are considerably worse. 
Another case that has got quite a bit of publicity over the past few months—and I know that the Minister cares deeply about social justice—is the 87 second-round claimants in the Lake Alice Hospital case who each had $35000 lopped off their compensation payments. It is quite disgusting but that was actually done as a secret deal around the Cabinet table. When we asked the Minister about this in the Health Committee he actually said that it was nothing to do with Vote Health. Since then he has come back and said that indeed it is to do with Vote Health. Cabinet has been talking about this for quite some time and we want that money to be paid out. I know that the Minister for all his faults and for all his mismanagement of health is a man of integrity. I know he will want to see that money rightfully paid to those people who suffered in Government institutions for many years. I tell him that there are 87 of them and that it will cost him only $3 million. You have spent an extra $1.5 billion in the last Budget and I think you should be paying out those people now— 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: By using the word “you” the member is bringing the Chair into the debate. 
Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN 
: I am sorry. It is Minister Hodgson I am referring to. 
So that is an issue that needs to be considered. But the Minister will have a lot else on his mind because conflicts of interest are rife in the health system run by him. We have had the case of what is going on in the Hawke’s Bay District Health Board at the moment. We can have no confidence that that will be settled properly. I tell the Minister that it is time for him to come clean on these issues.