Ryall Tony: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
Ryall Tony: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
[Volume:630;Page:2145] 
10.  
Hon TONY RYALL (National—Bay of Plenty) 
 to the  
Minister of Health 
: Is he concerned about the Government’s ability to meet New Zealanders’ need for elective surgery; if not why not? 
Hon PETE HODGSON (Minister of Health) 
: 
 While I am delighted that the number of elective surgery procedures has increased by 12.6 percent on a case-weighted basis under this Government and by more than that when outpatient procedures are taken into account there is always more to be done. This Government will never be complacent. 
Hon Tony Ryall 
: If hospital budgets have increased by over 25 percent in the last 5 years why do New Zealand patients need to have more and more points and to be more and more sick before they get any access to elective surgery? 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: I cannot remember by how much the member said hospital budgets had been raised. Could he repeat that? [ 
Interruption 
] Well whatever it was it was less than 74.6 percent; yet that is the amount by which angioplasty interventions have increased since the change of Government—not bad I would say. 
Sue Moroney 
: What have been the results of the Government’s work to increase the total number of surgical procedures performed in New Zealand’s public hospitals? 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: The results have been significant. In 2005 there were over 300000 case-weighted surgical discharges from our public hospitals—an increase of nearly 10 percent—not including the increase in outpatients. Under this Government more and more New Zealanders are getting the surgery they need but unlike the previous National Government we are never complacent and we remain convinced that we can do even better. 
Hon Tony Ryall 
: Which of those numbers quoted by the Minister includes the many thousands of New Zealanders who merely passed through a surgical ward and received no surgical services whatsoever in the years under review yet have been counted? 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: The method by which surgical procedures are measured is unchanged over many years. If I could just give the member a little more detail the precise method is that if someone is admitted then not given—[ 
Interruption 
] Oh well I will not give him the detail. 
Hon Tony Ryall 
: How can he justify—[ 
Interruption 
] 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Who is talking out there? Who actually intervened? Could that member please identify himself or herself and leave the Chamber. [ 
Interruption 
] Please leave the Chamber. 
Hon David Benson-Pope withdrew from the Chamber. 
Hon Tony Ryall 
: How can the Minister justify dumping from the waiting lists in the last 2 months for which information is available 1100 people for whom medical specialists consider that elective surgery is the best option and who are likely to deteriorate without it? 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: To the best of my knowledge anybody who crosses the treatment threshold is not dumped. 
Hon Tony Ryall 
: Does the Minister not think that it is harder to cross the treatment threshold when the Government’s district health boards keep putting the points up? 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: I ask the member where the evidence is for that. 
Hon Tony Ryall 
: I seek leave to table the evidence—documents from Capital and Coast District Health Board from Northland District Health Board from MidCentral District Health Board and from Auckland District Health Board showing that points needed to get elective surgery in this country are going up in category after category. 
Documents not tabled. 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: I seek leave to table a letter from the Hon Bill English as Minister of Health to all Crown health enterprises instructing them to raise the thresholds. 
Document not tabled. 
Hon Mark Burton 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. Yet again during that point of order we had a barrage of rudeness from that side of the House including from the member who had just been given the courtesy of silence while he took his point of order. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Exactly. I will have to talk to the whips about that unless some of you want to identify yourselves. I was asked to eject someone else from the Chamber for interjecting when there was a question which I have done. When there was a point of order I got interjections from this side. I have to be fair. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Self-identified. I’m off. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Gerry Brownlee has identified himself. 
Gerry Brownlee withdrew from the Chamber. 
Dr Jonathan Coleman 
: When the Minister makes statements relating to elective surgery is the Minister wearing his hat as the Minister of Health as a former vet or as a former fruit and vegetable seller; and assuming that he places a different premium on the life of a human an animal and a vegetable is it possible that he sometimes gets his hats confused? 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: If that member were my doctor I would get a new one.