Chadwick Steve: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
Chadwick Steve: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
[Volume:627;Page:22178] 
8.  
STEVE CHADWICK (Labour—Rotorua) 
 to the  
Minister of Health 
: What reports if any has she received on recent developments in the health sector? 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Minister of Health) 
: 
 I have seen a report from Counties Manukau District Health Board on its most recent achievements. This is an area of New Zealand with some of the highest health needs and in this last year the district health board has provided mental health services for 18 percent more people achieved an 11 percent reduction in acute admissions for children enrolled over 6500 in chronic care management and in Care Plus delivered all three doses of meningococcal B vaccine to 90 percent of primary school - age children and has spent less on management and administration than it did before it became a district health board while at the same time achieving a 29.5 increase in medical staff and a 16.8 percent increase in nursing staff. What does the National Party want to do about that? It wants to go back to the future and wreck all that progress to pay for tax cuts. 
Steve Chadwick 
: What other reports has she seen on recent developments in the health sector? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: I read a report in the  
New Zealand Herald 
 last week that talked about rationalising small primary health organisations because they are inefficient. Yet the Counties Manukau district has several small primary health organisations and they provide excellent examples of current primary health care policies and chronic care management programmes. Everybody knows that rationalisation is another name for cut-backs and that is exactly what National promises to do so that it can pay for its tax cuts. National calls that choice. Yeah right! 
Dr Paul Hutchison 
: Does she deny the damning statement of the July 2005 New Zealand OECD report specifically relating to health which states: “Although it has long been assumed that an expansion of inputs would directly feed into a rise in outputs it is now increasingly obvious that this assumption is false.” which sums up the waste bureaucracy and inefficiency under her watch over the last 5 years—does she deny that report? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: No. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Does one of the reports she has received on recent developments in the health sector include reference to the 1329 people who died on hospital waiting lists last year because she and her administration could not get them an operation or to the almost 2700 who have died in the last 2 years and in addition to the boast that we are at 54 percent of Australia’s cost on pharmaceuticals and at one-third of the OECD’s? Has she got those reports yet; if so what will she do about them? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: There is no such report that states that over 1000 people died of conditions for which they were waiting for operations that they did not receive. In fact that is palpably and demonstrably false. There is a report on people who died while they may well have been waiting to have their carpal tunnel fixed or their cataracts done. They may well have died in a car accident or of old age but there is no such report that states that they died of the condition for which they were waiting for an operation. 
Sue Kedgley 
: Is the Minister aware that the Australian Government has published a comprehensive and detailed plan outlining how it would respond in the event of a bird flu pandemic and has allocated $156 million to bird flu preparations; why has her ministry still not published a similarly detailed plan outlining how New Zealand would cope in the event of a bird flu pandemic and in particular how the Government plans to plug gaps such as a lack of facilities to quarantine and isolate patients a lack of laboratory surveillance to enable us to rapidly detect the virus and a lack of preparedness in the primary health care sector generally and on how the ministry would resolve ethical issues such as the rationing of the Government’s limited supplies of the antiviral drug Tamiflu? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: That member has requested a briefing from the Ministry of Health which is to be held at 1 o’clock tomorrow so she will be better informed about what New Zealand is doing and we will certainly be able to show her the comparison between what New Zealand is doing and what Australia is planning to do. As I was at the meeting of health Ministers in Australia last week I think I probably have a better idea as to how ready they are in comparison with New Zealand. 
Judy Turner 
: Does the Minister agree that the recent DigiPoll result showing that the majority of people believe doctors’ fees have increased under Labour can be explained by the fact that there are over 1.2 million adults many of them parents who are struggling with the costs of raising a family who are paying in excess of $50 or $60 to visit the doctor or even worse who do not go because they cannot afford it; if so does she believe New Zealanders might think differently if all families were targeted as a priority to get subsidies? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: I agree with the member and by July 2007 under this Labour Government all New Zealanders will have universal access to affordable primary health care something that National would get rid of. Unfortunately DigiPoll surveyed everybody not just those who are receiving subsidies now. It is not a very valid poll at all. 
Steve Chadwick 
: What other reports has the Minister heard of the way the Government’s primary health care policy is working? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: We have many reports of how well the primary health care strategy is working in many different parts of New Zealand. In fact I could tell members of different parts of New Zealand that are now addressing issues like diabetes and chronic conditions like cardiac conditions cancer and so on. We are starting to see some real progress. What does National want to do? It wants to get rid of it to give less than 20 bucks a week in a tax cut to all New Zealanders it says. Yeah right!