Hutchison Paul: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
Hutchison Paul: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
[Volume:625;Page:20234] 
11.  
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Port Waikato) 
 to the  
Minister of Health 
: What remedial treatment is she going to organise for the 591 patients sent back to their GPs by the Tairawhiti District Health Board without a first specialist assessment an action described by Dr Jonathan Simon as suggesting “the hospital system was so overwhelmed that it could no longer deal with routine cases”? 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Minister of Health) 
: 
 There is no need for me to take any action remedial or otherwise in relation to the patients sent back to their general practitioners by the Tairawhiti District Health Board over an 18-month period for the following reasons. Firstly prior to any patients returning to their general practitioners their cases had been read by hospital specialists. Secondly some cases needed more information. Thirdly some patients no longer needed an appointment. And fourthly those who did not meet the criteria for an appointment are monitored by their general practitioners and should their conditions change are referred back to their specialists. That is a big improvement from the time when they sat on an unpublished and hidden waiting list believing that one day they might get an appointment. 
Dr Paul Hutchison 
: How many more patients will be culled from district health board waiting lists around New Zealand after they have waited for longer than 6 months or are the 2000 patients who were culled from Counties Manukau District Health Board’s lists on 1 April and the 591 from Tairawhiti District Health Board’s lists the only ones who will be thrown back to a life of uncertainty and often pain by the Government? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: The good news about the system that we have now which was brought in in 1998 is that people are not culled. They are sent to their general practitioners to be monitored until a time when they meet the criteria for an operation which is not what happened in the past when they sat on a list for years and years and nothing happened to them. 
Moana Mackey 
: What measures has the Tairawhiti District Health Board taken recently to improve access to surgery? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: I am pleased to say that the board has done very well. It has increased its surgical services by 4 percent in the last year. It has also appointed more specialists and it now has nurse-led clinics which have increased the ability for more people to be seen. It is doing rather well. 
Heather Roy 
: Why has the Minister got around 120000 people waiting for first specialist assessments—over 28000 of them waiting longer than 6 months—when she blustered while in Opposition that having 96000 people on the waiting list was “criminal” and that “people could be dying”; and can she deny that the number of people waiting over 6 months has surged by 25 percent in the last 4 months? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: Ninety-six thousand people were not waiting for first specialist assessments; they were waiting for an operation. The number of people who were waiting for first specialist assessment was not even counted. I tell the member that the real figure we look at is how many people wait over 6 months and she has raised that issue. I am pleased to say that it has dropped from the year 2000 when there were 40000 waiting. 
Dr Paul Hutchison 
: Who does the Minister think is to blame for the Government’s waiting list fiasco: the district health boards as the ministry claims or the ministry as noted by Professor of Surgery Dr Bryan Parry who said: “The Ministry of Health has some explaining to do itself. Blaming health boards is a patent distraction ploy. A double jeopardy now exists. The elective surgical booking system has degenerated into the elective surgical blocking system.”? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: I do not agree with that statement because we have more people having operations than ever before. For example 1000 more people had first specialist assessment from the Tairawhiti District Health Board in 2004 compared with the year 2000. That is an improvement in anyone’s language. If the member wanted to put blame on anybody I need to tell him that the system started in 1998. We have continued with that system. We should perhaps look back at the architects. I am not going to blame them. I think it is a much better system than we had in the past. 
Dr Paul Hutchison 
: I seek leave to table three documents. The first is from the  
Gisborne Herald 
 dated Wednesday 4 May which states that there were hundreds of patients taken off the referral list. As at March 2005 the number of people waiting for a first specialist assessment was 1674. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There is. It will not be tabled. 
Dr Paul Hutchison 
: The second document is from the  
New Zealand Herald 
 written by Jonathan Simon and entitled “Just how sick do you have to be to get a hospital bed?”. It states: “When we look at the significant investment in the health sector over the past four years it is devastating to see how little effect it has had.” 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There is objection. 
Dr Paul Hutchison 
: The third article is from the  
New Zealand Herald  
on 27 April. Professor Bryan Parry says: “A double jeopardy now exists. The elective surgical booking system has degenerated”— 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There is. 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: I seek leave to table a letter from Dr Hutchison to me that is about a patient with the patient’s name removed who waited 12 years for knee replacement surgery—most of that time under the National Government. I am pleased to say that this person has had a procedure and is due for another one very soon. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Heather Roy 
: I seek leave to table a newspaper article from the  
Evening Post  
dated 19 August 1998 which states that 96000 people were waiting for a first assessment not for surgery as the Minister stated. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There is. The document will not be tabled.