Bond RiaRIA BOND (NZ First): I am pleased to rise on behalf of New Zealand First and take this call on the healthcare sector. The Minister of Health Jonathan Coleman like he did previous to the dinner break likes to get up and tell us all—inside this Chamber and also out in the public—that our healthcare system is well supported and that it is heading in the right direction. Well we are not hearing that out there in the streets of New Zealand and right around the country. We are having people come into our offices who are actually giving us the situation that they are in or are forced to be in and it is a situation we should not have happening within our healthcare system.The issue with the funding I think over the last 4 weeks and maybe perhaps even longer—the people whom I have interacted with even nurses have been saying to me that they are grossly underfunded that they are finding that they are having to work longer hours with fewer resources. This puts patients' lives at risk. Just yesterday at the New Zealand Nurses Organisation meeting we were asked as panel members whether we would be happy to have our father lying in a bed and not being able to be washed because of the services that the nurses cannot actually get to in their working day. That is the harsh reality for our nursing sector in this country: nurses cannot and do not have enough resources in order to look after the patients. The concern absolutely is that the risk to patients is quite high.I have heard earlier tonight the Minister say that he is really happy that the Government has been able to increase the nursing numbers throughout New Zealand in the last financial year. I immediately thought about this issue: in the Southern District Health Board we are actually looking at a proposed restructure where we are going to see 23 jobs gone—23 jobs in a health system that is already buckling under the pressure. Doctors are actually even saying now that there are fewer doctors per capita down here in New Zealand. In fact the GP per capita has actually received a 12 percent decrease and that is a real concern. What we are also hearing is that Kiwis—New Zealanders—are trying to find a GP and they cannot find one because there are phenomenal waiting lists just to see a GP.So when I hear a statement saying that our healthcare system is in a good position and that it is heading in the right direction I would like to suggest that our healthcare system is in a right royal mess—in a mess. It is because we are finding that people are actually waiting longer. Regardless of the fact that the Minister is saying that surgery numbers have gone up they are waiting longer to receive their treatment. Again in Southland at the district health board (DHB) we saw 30 patients recently actually suffer and lose their eyesight because of the waiting lists for the ophthalmology cases. That has been an absolute concern.Through the process of the review the committee heard about the state of the youth mental health care services around the country. What they are saying is that the waiting time or the time for youth—people under the age of 19—to get non-urgent mental health care services is somewhere between the provision of 4 to 8 weeks. That is too long. That is too long for people to wait to get non-urgent mental health care.I want to also bring up the concern that due to the fact that our healthcare system is underfunded due to the fact that our mental health care system is in a crisis we are now finding that schools are having to pick up the slack from the DHBs because they have not got the right numbers of specialists to help with mental health care patients. I am quite concerned—and New Zealand First is concerned—that the state of the mental health care system is now spilling out into our schools where our young ones are actually having issues with trying to have access to mental health care.What we are also concerned about is—if the healthcare system is in such a great position as the Minister states—we are finding that more and more community services are being leaned on through mental health care services because people cannot actually get access to their mental health team units in their DHBs. I think that if we look at the overall state of the healthcare system here in New Zealand and if we look at the fact that if as claimed our healthcare system was funded adequately and it was funded correctly for our population base and our population growth then we would not have the many hundreds of New Zealanders currently suffering right now in their homes because they cannot get access to healthcare services in this country. Thank you.