Ryall Tony: Debate on Crown Entities Public Organisations  and State Enterprises — In Committee 
Ryall Tony: Debate on Crown Entities Public Organisations  and State Enterprises — In Committee 
[Volume:631;Page:3074] 
Hon TONY RYALL (National—Bay of Plenty) 
: 
 In March the Government required the Director-General of Health to write to eight district health boards around the country to threaten them with an upgraded level of monitoring and the removal of their early payment situation if they did not improve the level of their performance of what are called the elective services patient flow indicators. The ministry’s letter follows the revelation in Parliament that despite apparently billions and billions of dollars being put into the public health system in the last 6 years fewer elective procedures are being performed. That also showed that fewer surgical procedures were being performed compared with 5 years ago. As a result the Ministry of Health wrote to a number of district health boards to threaten them with increased monitoring by the Government and to send a very clear message that their current performance was concerning and that they must move to compliance with those standards. 
That is why we have seen thousands and thousands of New Zealanders culled from waiting lists in the last few months. We already know that about 14000 New Zealanders— 
Anne Tolley 
: Fourteen thousand? 
Hon TONY RYALL 
:—14000—so far this year have been culled from the waiting list to see a specialist. On top of that we know that now almost 9000 New Zealanders have been culled from the waiting list after seeing a specialist and being told by that specialist that they need an operation and would benefit from having such an operation. 
In the district health board considerations that the Health Committee conducted district health board after district health board confessed to the select committee that people have to be sicker today to get an operation than they needed to be 5 years ago. That is what the Auckland District Health Board the Waitamata District Health Board the Counties Manukau District Health Board the Capital and Coast District Health Board and the Canterbury District Health Board said. This paints a picture of an elective services system in crisis. Fewer New Zealanders are getting elective surgery today than were getting it 5 years ago. That is very serious when we consider that the Government has made a huge investment in the health system yet fewer people are getting seen. 
What is frightening in the words of Dr Frizelle a leading cancer specialist in New Zealand is that many people are being dumped off a waiting list and sent home—some to die. On top of that concern salaried medical specialists have described what the Government has under way as dangerous and risky. The Minister of Health Pete Hodgson has not responded to that criticism. Senior medical specialists are saying that the cull the Government has under way directed by these letters that the Minister instructed the Ministry of Health to write is dangerous and risky and using the word of one of New Zealand’s leading cancer specialists frightening. 
We can understand why ordinary New Zealanders are worried about this Government’s handling of the health system. They are worried because there is a major disconnect in the Government’s policy. The Government is saying that it wants to increase access to primary care and to get people who do not go to see general practitioners to see them in order to get care. It is a laudable principle. More people apparently are going to see general practitioners but general practitioners are saying that those people need to go to hospital to get dealt with and to be seen by specialists because they have a secondary need. But when people get there they hit a logjam. 
As the Ministry of Health has said in its own documents the Government’s approach to electives is focused solely on cutting waiting lists not on increasing the number of elective procedures. That is what the Ministry of Health wrote to the Minister of Health. The Government’s elective policy is more about cutting the waiting lists than it is about focusing on additional elective procedures for New Zealanders.