Stewart Barbara: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
Stewart Barbara: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
[Volume:648;Page:17642] 
BARBARA STEWART (NZ First) 
: 
 On behalf of New Zealand First I am pleased to take a call in the estimates debate and in particular on Vote Health. We are very pleased to see the continued investment that the Labour Government has made in health. We know it inherited a system that had become very run down under the National Government to the extent that there were tills in hospitals. Most people who went to hospital were horrified to find that they could not afford to pay for their treatment. It does not fill us with a great deal of confidence when we hear Sir Roger Douglas say that when he comes back to office he will do to the health system exactly what he did to the railway system. That is not a nice thought for the people of New Zealand. 
Dr Jonathan Coleman 
: Well he isn’t coming back with us. Is he coming back with you? 
BARBARA STEWART 
: No he is not coming back with us; he is expecting to come back under an ACT-National arrangement. 
New Zealand First is very pleased to see the extra investment in health. We know that people need some certainty about their health care and timely access to treatment. We hear from members opposite that the queues are larger than they ever were but under the Labour Government there has been some movement towards dealing with that. 
However we were disturbed to read in the  
Dominion Post  
that Ministry of Health figures show that the number of babies born in New Zealand to non-resident mothers more than quadrupled between 2006 and 2007. The figures show an increase in births in our hospitals of 3248 in the previous 12 months. We wonder why. If one does the figures one sees that 76 such births a week are happening in our hospitals. That is a quite significant number. We have to ask why and for what benefit our hospitals are being used in this particular way. We in New Zealand First believed that the loophole had been closed and that the numbers of such births would be dramatically reduced but for some reason they have not been. The automatic right to citizenship for babies born here stopped in 2006. Now at least one parent must be a New Zealand citizen before any newborn is granted a Kiwi passport. We applaud the action that was taken on that front. For a long time there were maternity safaris to New Zealand under National and at last that has stopped. 
Although we are fully aware that it is up to the individual district health boards to recover costs from non-resident mothers who have used our hospitals we know that that is very difficult and can be very challenging because most district health boards do not have the resources to follow up on this particular area. It is not uncommon as we read in the  
Dominion Post 
 for a woman’s maternity bill including the cost of a baby’s delivery to spiral above $12000 particularly if the baby is premature and needs to stay in a neonatal unit. We know that the district health boards are funded to provide maternity services only for mothers who are New Zealand citizens or residents or who have appropriate working visas or refugee status or who fall under the reciprocal agreements with Australia and Britain. The women I am talking about fall outside of these parameters and the matter needs to be followed up. We need to be sure that we can offer health services to our own citizens. I was pleased to hear Minister Chadwick say today that she will look into the situation with neonatal babies and find out how many foreign mothers who come to New Zealand are using neonatal units. Quite honestly we do not want New Zealanders to miss out in this particular area. 
We know there are no simple solutions to the many and varied difficulties that are confronting the health system. We have to be realistic and face the realities of an ageing population. Improving technology and medicines are increasing life expectancy and of course this places unique demands on the health system. We are very aware too of the workforce shortages that are being experienced. That is a big challenge and the World Health Organization also pointed it out. We are also becoming overly dependent on foreign-trained medical personnel and the increasingly costly use of locums.