Bradford Sue: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
Bradford Sue: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
[Volume:616;Page:12443] 
10.  
SUE BRADFORD (Green) 
 to the  
Minister of Health 
: What are the Government’s plans for the future of Kaitaia Hospital? 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Minister of Health) 
:  
The Government intends to fund a new hospital at Kaitaia in line with the recommendations of the review carried out in 2002-03. 
Sue Bradford 
: Can the Minister confirm that the much-vaunted upgrade she has just mentioned will not actually restore after-hours surgery and will not give Kaitaia a proper emergency department and does she believe that this is the solution the people of Kaitaia had in mind when 2 weeks before the last election she promised to find a real long-term solution to the problems there? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: Indeed we found a long-term solution for Kaitaia by the recommendations that came out of the review—the review that was agreed by the community. It was the community that put in place the reviewers who carried it out and we have implemented the recommendations. Twenty-four hour a day surgery will not be restored. It has not been carried out in Kaitaia since 28 February 2003 and since that time an average of around six people a month have had to be transferred on the advice of their clinician. What they do have is certainty that they will have a hospital today and into the future that also provides emergency care in a new emergency department. 
Steve Chadwick 
: Can the Minister guarantee there will be a new hospital at Kaitaia that includes operating theatres as promised in the review carried out in consultation with the Kaitaia community? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: Yes I can guarantee that I will very shortly be announcing a new Kaitaia Hospital that will include operating theatres modernised wards a new emergency department etc. providing the sort of facility the people of Kaitaia richly deserve and have long asked for. 
Sue Bradford 
: Why are even minor daytime operations such as tonsillectomies being sent to Whangarei and is Kaitaia Hospital not simply being subjected to death by a thousand cuts? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: They certainly are not being subjected to death by a thousand cuts. If the member took time to look at what is being put in place she would see that it has a future that it has not been assured of in the past and that something like 121 operations have been carried out in the last year. What are not being carried out are emergency operations in the middle of the night. They are transferred to Whangarei. 
Sue Bradford 
: Can the Minister assure the people of the far north in promising them a real hospital in Kaitaia that the proposed upgrade will prevent situations such as the recent case in which a pregnant woman had to be driven to Whangarei Hospital and ended up giving birth on the top of the Mangamukas with nothing more than a towel to wrap her baby in on a cold night? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: No I cannot give a guarantee that a woman will not have a baby in the back of a car or the front of a car. After all one birth was reported out on the Hutt motorway recently. Babies come where babies come. One does try to plan births but anyone who has had a baby knows they cannot always be planned exactly.