Turner Judy: Budget Debate 
Turner Judy: Budget Debate 
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JUDY TURNER (Deputy Leader—United Future) 
: 
 It is interesting that in a recent poll voters said that health was the No. 1 issue of concern to them and I want to talk a bit about Government spending in that regard. 
When we look at health there are I think three main issues. The first one I want to talk about is probably the key issue that affects every household and that is how much it costs to go to one’s local general practitioner. It is appalling to think that visits to the doctor by vulnerable members of the community children and the elderly in particular are constrained by cost. As a parent I have been in that situation of wondering whether to wait to see whether the child gets more sick before making that visit or to spend the money now. Certainly the primary health organisations that have been established have been set up with the intention of bringing down those prices. 
Hon Annette King 
: They are. 
JUDY TURNER 
: I say to the Minister of Health that anecdotally there is some evidence around the country that not all general practitioners are cooperating and that some rather hefty bills are being paid by those who would have expected now that their general practitioner is part of a primary health organisation that cost to start to come down. I understand that general practitioners have always been allowed to set their own fees. As primary health organisations they are expected to consider and factor into their charges the subsidies that the Government pays them. At present I think it is about $36.40 for the under-sixes and about $26 for everybody else. 
Hon Annette King 
: Not everybody yet. 
JUDY TURNER 
: No; I think it is about 3.7 million of our population which is a pretty good rate I have to say—a very high take-up of people now enrolled in primary health organisations. 
The concern that some of us have in the middle of all of that is to make sure that what we are setting out to achieve is a destination that we are arriving at. One of the concerns I have is avoidable hospital visits. The recent report the  
Health and Independence Report 
 put out by the Director-General of Health an annual report on the state of public health mentions that we can certainly measure primary health care outcomes by whether there is a reduction in the number of hospitalisations that are characterised as potentially avoidable or fully avoidable. The theory is that if people go to their doctor early enough because it is affordable then the number of people turning up at hospital whose hospital visit could have been avoided will go down. What concerns me is that although for the last few years the number seemed to level out for a while we had a situation—I think it was in the 1990s—where the admission rate was going up by about 3 percent a year. Certainly since about 2001 that figure stabilised. I guess we are hoping to see that figure tracking down but unfortunately in the last little bracket of time it has tracked up again ever so slightly. 
The concern is that avoidable hospital admissions of our Maori population continue to increase by about 1.1 percent a year. Of even more concern is the fact that for our Pacific Island community—and both Maori and Pacific Islanders are groups that have been targeted by the primary health organisation scheme—a 4.2 percent increase in the number of avoidable hospital visits is experienced most years. It is tracking upwards. I think we need to start looking at those measurements to check that we are really delivering because that is a key— 
Hon Annette King 
: It’s only been going for 2½ years. Give it a chance! 
JUDY TURNER 
: Well after 2½ years I think some tracking down of particularly the Maori and Pacific Island figures about which we have always been concerned should start to happen. 
In the time I have left I want to talk about waiting lists. United Future would like to see the Government address the fact that a country our size cannot afford to have wasted capacity. Many times we do have wasted capacity in the private sector. We would like to see contestable funding made available particularly to reduce waiting lists. I would also like to mention that as was talked about in question time today the development of the health workforce is probably the greatest future crisis facing our country and we need to be very proactive in this regard.