Ryall Tony: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
Ryall Tony: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
[Volume:650;Page:18688] 
6.  
Hon TONY RYALL (National—Bay of Plenty) 
 to the  
Minister of Health 
: Does he stand by his recent statement that accident and emergency department performance is “pleasing” in light of the reported crisis situation in many of the country’s emergency departments? 
Hon JIM ANDERTON (Associate Minister of Health) 
on behalf of the  
Minister of Health 
: Yes I am pleased that in the last period for which information is available between 99.9 percent and 100 percent of patients in the most seriously ill category have been seen immediately. I am also pleased that in the second-most urgent category the proportion of people seen immediately has improved from 59 percent to 72 percent over the last 3 years. That is a much better performance in large emergency departments in particular especially in Auckland and Christchurch. District health boards have been introducing improvements in the way they manage patients and that as I have said is pleasing to this Government. It might actually be unpleasing to the shroud-waver from Whakatane. 
Hon Tony Ryall 
: Has the Minister seen the comments of the head of the Auckland City Hospital emergency department Dr Tim Parke in respect of the Minister saying he is pleased with the performance of accident and emergency departments that the crisis in hospital emergency departments causes as many deaths as occur on the roads; and what will he do about that? 
Hon JIM ANDERTON 
: Yes I have seen those comments. As I have said to the House there has been a steady improvement in the number of people being seen immediately in emergency departments. Even if seeing more people in emergency departments faster is not pleasing to the member it is pleasing to this Government because it evidences progress over any period when there was a Government of another persuasion rather than this one. 
Hon Tony Ryall 
: Why does the Minister say it is “pleasing” that hospital emergency department waiting times mean that at Wellington Hospital emergency department a dialysis patient waited in excess of 20 hours and that some patients were languishing on trolleys for 9 days—does he think that is pleasing? 
Hon JIM ANDERTON 
: There are always individual cases that members can raise in this House and if they want individual answers on them they can put questions to me as Associate Minister or to the Minister of Health and they will get them. What I actually said is that a lot of investment is going into steady improvements in patient management. The focus of most of that work is on making sure that patients can be quickly admitted to wards and not have to wait. That is the record of this Government—one of steady improvement—and any day the member likes to compare that to 9 years under National he will be welcome to do so. 
Hon Tony Ryall 
: Why has Labour broken Helen Clark’s promise that “If someone needs a hospital bed they will get it and they will stay there as long as they need to.”? 
Hon JIM ANDERTON 
: What I have said to the House is a reaffirmation of that commitment. More people are being seen faster and getting access to treatment faster than ever before and that is a record that will stack up against anything National performed in 9 years. 
Hon Tony Ryall 
: Does the Minister want to reconsider his answer in the light of the fact that official information from his own district health boards shows that patients at Wellington Hospital’s emergency department are waiting over 130 percent longer now than they were a year ago? 
Hon JIM ANDERTON 
: I have given the House the national data that is most recently available which indicates that right across the hospital system more people in serious condition are being seen faster than at any time in hospital history. Even if that does not satisfy the member it is very satisfying to this Government. 
Hon Tony Ryall 
: If this Government has spent so much money on new buildings new emergency departments new this and new that why are most of our major hospital emergency departments in code red unable to sufficiently see patients so that they are languishing for days in emergency departments; and is that what Labour will continue to offer people in New Zealand? 
Hon JIM ANDERTON 
: What Labour and its associate parties in this House have offered and are offering is a much more effective and efficient hospital system than we have ever had before. The member is so regularly waving shrouds in this House that he is beginning to look like one. 
Hon Tony Ryall 
: Does the Minister really think the House will believe that the health system is effective when women in their 80s are required to languish on hospital trolleys under bright fluorescent lights for 4 days? 
Hon JIM ANDERTON 
: It does not sound effective in that particular case. 
Hon Tony Ryall 
: That’s the point. It’s not. 
Hon JIM ANDERTON 
: I see—so we are going to measure the entire health and hospital system against the one case that Mr Ryall brings to the House every now and then! That is a ludicrous way of measuring the quality of the health system and the member makes himself a joke to any health professional who knows it.