Mark Ron: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
Mark Ron: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
[Volume:625;Page:20669] 
12.  
RON MARK (NZ First) 
 to the  
Minister of Health 
: Does the Ministry of Health conduct background checks other than psychological and psychiatric assessments before any decisions are made to fund sex-change operations; if not why not? 
Hon PETE HODGSON (Acting Minister of Health) 
: 
 No. No other checks are carried out. 
Ron Mark 
: Is the Minister of Health aware that one person currently seeking a taxpayer-funded sex-change operation—a person who has also callously tried to court sympathy through the media—has committed a litany of child sex offences of the most depraved kind; and why does her ministry consider such operations as a priority for taxpayer funding at a time when health workers are striking over poor pay and working conditions and when her own figures confirm that people on waiting lists are dying by the thousand each year? 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: The New Zealand health system does not allocate its services according to a patient’s criminal record. If people with convictions were excluded from accessing the system then my personal conviction is that that would be wrong. I suspect that that would be the member’s personal conviction too. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Mr Mark. 
Ron Mark 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. I know that the custom is to go across from one side of the House to the other when calling supplementary questions. I saw Dianne Yates calling for a supplementary question before me. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: That is really kind of you. 
Dianne Yates 
: Can doctors in New Zealand withhold treatment because a person has criminal convictions? 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: No they cannot. A person who has a criminal record is not discounted from having access to elective or emergency surgery. There is no basis on which to decline a patient because of his or her criminal record. 
Ron Mark 
: How many hip replacements gall bladder operations knee replacements or hernias could be attended to with the $170000 set aside by this Government specifically to fund sex-change operations for people convicted of perverse activities; and what does it say to the public about the priorities of this Government when it is prepared to offer funding for sex-change operations to prison inmates and depraved paedophiles while many decent elderly people are dying while waiting for their surgery? 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: I cannot bring to mind the additional amount of money the Hon Annette King has put in for orthopaedic surgery but I think it is $80 million compared with $170000. However I think a more poignant piece of information for the member is this. An analysis was done of 2000 transsexual patients in 13 countries over 30 years. In a recent letter to the weekend  
Press 
 of Christchurch the following sentences were submitted: “Perhaps the saddest statistic to emerge were the suicide rates. Up to 25 percent of male-to-female transsexuals and almost 20 percent of female-to-male transsexuals had attempted suicide at least once before beginning treatment.” I do not want to go on and say that paedophilia and the desire for a sex-change operation are linked but I certainly could not say that they are not. 
Ron Mark 
: I seek the leave of the House to table written answers from the Minister confirming that 3701 people on the waiting list have died between 2001 and 2002. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that written answer. Is there any objection? Yes there is. 
Ron Mark 
: I seek leave of the House to table an article from the  
Dominion Post 
 confirming that this Government funded a sex-change operation last year for an inmate in jail. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that article. Is there any objection? There is. It will not be tabled.