Stewart Barbara: Annual Review Debate — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeStewart Barbara: Annual Review Debate — In Committee[Sitting date: 03 May 2016. Volume:713;Page:10671. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]BARBARA STEWART (NZ First): I am pleased to rise to take a call on behalf of New Zealand First on the annual review of the health sector. The Minister of Health continues to tell us on every opportunity that he can that the health system is in good shape and that we are heading in the right direction. We are hearing the increasingly loud voices of the people out there who are telling us that this is definitely not the case. We and they too hold grave concerns for the future of our health system because the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff is ailing which is a very unfortunate situation.The chronic underfunding is basically putting a huge strain on our health services and putting our system at risk. Many district health boards are not able to fund a safe level of staffing in our hospitals or even keep annual leave at a manageable level and we have read this many times in the newspapers. The medical staff are saying that their workloads are unsustainable and that they are being forced to do more and more with less. It is not a safe situation and patients are basically being put at risk.I had a very fortunate meeting with somebody on a plane going back to Hamilton—Scott Simpson: I bet.BARBARA STEWART: —yes—who said that in his opinion the nurses and the doctors go beyond the call of duty to look after the patients. Despite the fact that they are stretched they do far more than they actually should. In high-dependency units and intensive care units we know that staff go beyond the call of duty. The gentleman I spoke to said that the care his son received was absolutely outstanding and could not be faulted. He also praised the hospital air service that flies from New Plymouth to Hamilton and again the care in there was outstanding. So we have got our staff working to the best of their ability despite the lack of funding.We know too that district health boards are unable to cope with the demand for elective surgery. Although the number of surgeries has increased and the Minister tells us that every day it is simply not enough to keep up with demand. We have got an ageing population we have got a sharp increase in chronic illnesses and all of this is putting pressure on the health system. And what have we seen? We have seen the district health boards having to raise the threshold to ensure that people have to jump through higher hoops to actually qualify for surgery. The result is that more and more people are becoming more and more disabled and more are left in chronic pain to try to cope until they can have surgery.Performing operations when they are needed makes sounds economic sense and of course it saves money. I had one instance recently of a gentleman coming to visit me in my Hamilton office. He said that he needed a heart operation but the hospital had told him that it did not have the money to actually carry this out. This does not sound like the health system that we have had in the past.Pharmac too is severely underfunded meaning that more and more New Zealanders are missing out on vital medicines. Those who can afford to pay for them privately or through private health insurance definitely receive them but for the rest of the people it is just about impossible. They are left to manage as best they can. We have never ever had a two-tier health system here in New Zealand where those who can afford treatment get it and those who cannot basically go without.When we look at cancer we see that we are lagging behind Australia in this area too. Up in the Waitematā District Health Board the bowel cancer screening programme is absolutely outstanding saving many people every year. Why has this programme not been extended to other district health boards? It is actually saving lives. I am hoping that the Minister is going to announce this in the Budget this year. An election promise is too late. We will lose another 1200 people to this disease.When we have a look at obesity the number of cases is reaching chronic levels.