Stewart Barbara: Budget DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeStewart Barbara: Budget Debate[Sitting date: 07 June 2016. Volume:714;Page:11746. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]BARBARA STEWART (NZ First): It is a pleasure to take a call on behalf of New Zealand First. We in New Zealand First believe that this Budget represents another lost opportunity for the Government to take real action for the current health of New Zealanders and for their future health.The bottom line is that health was underfunded. We know that health outcomes are poor and that they are even worsening here in New Zealand. We were pleased to see the increase in funds but we thought it could have really gone further. When we looked at it and assessed it we decided that it would not matter how much went into health because it would never be enough. Of course we know that New Zealanders want certainty when it comes to their health care. The bottom line is that we cannot just keep throwing money at health and expecting a different outcome because it is never going to be enough. We lost the opportunity to change the way that we do things.Perhaps we need to do some things differently like ensuring that our SuperGold cardholders can actually go and visit the doctor and stay out of hospital because we know the hospitals are overworked and that some SuperGold cardholders find it very difficult to actually leave hospital and go and resume life again. So that could have been considered. There could have even been some consideration given to private health insurers making private health insurance more attractive for people who can afford it—because that means that the burden on the State is actually lessened.I was interested to see that preventative health programmes were not even mentioned. We have got the third-highest rate of obesity in the OECD: one in three Kiwi adults is now obese. It is a critical problem that is a ticking time bomb for our health system. We have had anaesthetists tell us that they are concerned about the extra difficulties that they face when they are anaesthetising obese patients and the extra cost that comes with caring for these particular patients. And of course with obesity there comes a whole range of obesity-related diseases including joint problems heart problems diabetes and even some cancers. It is a sad fact that our heart disease rate is far worse than the OECD average and our cardiovascular death rate exceeds even that of the US.So people need some certainty. We know that Kiwis are waiting longer to have the surgery that they want waiting to get on the waiting list and that the extra $24 million for elective surgery that was promised within the Budget will not even come close to getting on top of this current problem which is a shame. Of course one still is not going to meet the need because we have got an increasing population due to immigration and we have got sharp increases in chronic illnesses. It is simply common sense to carry out operations when they are needed because then people can get out of hospital quicker and carry on with their lives. It is all too common for all of us MPs to receive horrific stories of Kiwis desperate for operations left in pain and waiting until they really want to give up. Many of these people are in desperate situations.When it comes to aged care we were quite surprised to see that there was nothing in this Budget for aged care. We know that the over-65 age group is set to double to 1.2 million people in 20 years. There was no increase in funding for aged care and dementia services within the district health board allocations and no increase in aged care services directly through the Ministry of Health. When we had a closer look we saw that in this particular area funding from the Ministry of Health had been discontinued—$700000 worth of funding had actually gone which is a shame because it is sorely needed.We were sorry to see that despite the increase in funds the need is still greater than what is there.