Stewart BarbaraBARBARA STEWART (NZ First): On behalf of New Zealand First I am very pleased to take a call in the Estimates debate. From our party's point of view it was good to see that there was an increase in the health budget in Vote Health. But the bottom line is that it is not enough and it will never be enough. Therefore we need to focus on prevention rather than cure. We are never going to have enough money to ensure that everyone has the health care that they would like. We are waiting to see action on non-communicable diseases in particular and the Government providing some educational programmes for parents and for children. There is no doubt as the previous speaker Jenny Salesa said that these non-communicable diseases are on the increase. Our people are getting bigger and bigger and people are not aware of prevention at all. As was said we are now third in the world in regard to obesity. We are rapidly closing in on the USA and Mexico which is not good when you see how big those people over there are. But there are good programmes that are out in schools already that are actually subsidised by district health boards (DHBs). The one that I always like to talk about is Project Energise in the Waikato. It is a fantastic programme that all of the school pupils enjoy. It has got a whole lot of outdoor exercise and then it focuses in on foods and sugary drinks and convenience foods—it is a programme that needs to be implemented in other DHBs. We need to start somewhere and get that message out there because there is nothing surer than the fact that we need to put a fence at the top of the cliff rather than rely totally on the ambulance at the bottom. The outlook in this area is not good and even the New Zealand Health Strategy has said that there needs to be a change in the system with more emphasis on prevention and less on treatment. One area that is really important to me—and the Health Committee knows this—is oral health. I could not let this go past without saying something about this area. It is interesting to see that over 29000 children needed to have teeth extracted in 2014-15. That means that four out of every 10 new-entrant children are starting school with tooth decay and some are even having their baby teeth extracted before they start school. This has a very detrimental effect on their adult teeth because of course they do not come through straight and they do not come in in the right places. Orthodontic treatment is not provided by the State and it is very very expensive. I also know that many parents are not following through on the preschool checks for their children or even school checks—when they have to leave work to ensure that they take their child to the dental therapist. It is very difficult to get away from work and every dollar is really really important. Quite often it is easier to leave those children let them put up with the pain and eventually have the teeth extracted under anaesthetic. This is an expense that could be reduced for the health system. There is an urgent need for cancer treatment to be improved for all cancers. New Zealand's survival rate at 5 years is 4 percent lower than that of Australia so this is an area that drastically needs attention. We have heard that elective surgery needs to be increased. I was at a meeting this afternoon and heard one lady say that she was able to get one hip operation but she cannot get anything done for the other hip unless she pays for it herself. As she said she cannot actually afford to pay for it. No doubt she will be writing to me and I will be forwarding that letter on to the appropriate places. We know that extra dollars have been put into the Budget for this type of operation—hips and knees—but it needs to be increased. We heard the Minister talk about bowel cancer screening. We are pleased to see that it is on the horizon but that is where it is—it is a long way off for most DHBs unfortunately. It needs to be rolled out in a far speedier manner.