Laban Luamanuvao Winnie: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
Laban Luamanuvao Winnie: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
[Volume:665;Page:12720] 
Hon LUAMANUVAO WINNIE LABAN (Labour—Mana) 
: 
 Kia ora Mr Assistant Speaker. Kia ora mai ano tatou katoa. E taku whanau e nga iwi e nga rangatira tena koutou katoa. Kia ora te Ropu Reipa. Aroha te Ropu Reipa toa. He tangata he tangata he tangata. 
[ 
Greetings to you Mr Assistant Speaker and to all of us as well. To my family people and chiefs greetings to you all. My greetings and sympathy to the warrior-like Labour Party. 
] 
Talofa lava and warm Pacific greetings. I want to put substance to matters of accountability transparency value for money and value for people. Due to the 2010 Budget district health boards will now no longer have enough funds to continue services at their current level. Even front-line services which have supposedly been given a 3.5 percent increase will be cut after the effects of inflation and wage increases are taken into account. The evidence of this is clear from right around the country. Morale is low in the health sector and people are expected to put a positive spin on what is happening. 
As we have seen in the Budget $186 million over 4 years has been cut from what the Government calls lower priority spending. This includes public health mental health and the Primary Health Care Strategy. The elderly are going without home support because the Government regards them as being a lower priority for spending. These figures represent real people who are missing out on services. More than 80 front-line services have been cut in the last 18 months in nearly every region of New Zealand. Those services range from massive reductions in home-based support for the elderly plans to cut beds in community hospitals that have just been opened through to a decision to turn people away from emergency departments. 
Sadly the effects of the cuts are already being felt very strongly and particularly in the area of aged care. I am hearing time and time again about problems relating to the care of the elderly aged care right around the country. Most of the comments that I hear are related to certain main themes: a lack of qualified staff especially registered nurses and a shortage of overall staff. What staff there are are underpaid and undertrained especially health care assistants and other caregivers. This leads to inadequate care both in rest homes and within the home-based sector. Home help has been cut after assessments made over the phone. I have heard many stories of elderly people finding medical care to be very elusive such as spending hours waiting for an appointment at accident and emergency centres only to be sent back to their general practitioner. 
Horror stories about the state of aged care in our country abound in the media. There is huge concern about the state of home care in particular. We all hear hugely concerning stories about cuts in this area. It means that a lot of our elderly are anxious and worried and they feel unwell. For instance I heard the story of a lady who had only half an hour of care support a week. The assessor declined her specific request to be assessed in person and she was told by the caregiver that she would no longer come because of the distance to her house. Another elderly woman who suffers from a spinal injury had 1 hour of home help per week. After assessment she negotiated a drop to just 1 hour per fortnight and since then her home help has been cut entirely. She cannot manage her own cleaning and day-to-day tasks. Stories like those have led Grey Power in Southland to lodge a case with the Human Rights Commission about cuts to home help in Southland as reported by the  
Southland Times 
 today. It comes after a huge number of stories about how the cuts are impacting on our elderly right around our country. 
It is hugely unfair to deprive the elderly of such basic care. But I also ask how cost-effective it is. Without access to home support many elderly will have to seek out residential care which costs far more and takes them out of their own homes often forcing them to move many miles away. I ask how much more front-line we can get than home help for our elderly. This Government talks a lot about shifting resources to front-line staff yet a service that provides in-home help for our most vulnerable people our elders is the first to be gutted. I ask how the Minister of Health can be comfortable when the results of the cuts he is imposing so obviously have such damaging effects on our elderly. 
Vote agreed to.