Hutchison Paul: Estimates Debate —  
Hutchison Paul: Estimates Debate —  
[Volume:610;Page:7199] 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (NZ National—Port Waikato) 
: 
 Page 678 of the Estimates reveals that for 2003-04 $9609.746 million will be spent on the health system in New Zealand. That is almost $10 billion—much more than the dairy exports. The question to ask the Minister of Health in relation to these estimates is whether that $10 billion is being spent well by this Labour Government. The answer is emphatically no. In almost every facet of the health system under Labour there is failure. Much of that failure has been brought about by Labour’s totally unnecessary bureaucratic and ideologically driven structural reforms. That failure extends from the Ministry of Health itself to the 21 indebted district health boards to Labour’s utterly inequitable primary health restructuring and to the fact that Plunket told us at its annual conference that under Labour it is resourced for only half the post-natal visits that mothers and babies received in the 1970s—and that is a shame. 
 Let us look for a moment at Dr Euphemia McGoogan’s report on the National Cervical-screening Programme of June 2003. That report gets to the centre of the failure of the Ministry of Health 4 years after this Government said that it would improve the situation. Dr McGoogan said: “I do not believe there is as yet a good understanding of the principles of public health screening programmes generally within the Ministry of Health among health professionals or by the public in New Zealand.” That is an indictment on the Minister and on the Government. 
Dr McGoogan goes on to say: “I remain unconvinced that the culture that had been developing in the Health Funding Authority regarding the management of the National Cervical-screening Programme under the influence of Dr Julia Peters has been maintained.” There has been clear deterioration under this Labour Government. Furthermore the doctor says: “I have serious concerns that there are inadequate appropriate training and development courses in New Zealand for all groups of health professionals involved in cervical screening.” 
Something like 14 years after the Cartwright report and some 6 years after the tragedy at Gisborne under Dr Bottrill once again—despite all the promises of the Labour Government and a budget of almost $9.5 billion—the very core of this Government’s organisation the Ministry of Health is dysfunctional and sadly that is absolutely epitomised by Dr Euphemia McGoogan’s report. 
Despite the $9.5 billion of spending almost every one of the 21 district health boards remains indebted and there have been successive resignations of chief executive officers. They are resignations in despair at Labour’s bureaucratic muddled and wasteful restructuring. I would like the Minister Mrs King to tell Parliament exactly why Mr Graeme Edmond chief executive officer of the biggest district health board of all has just mysteriously resigned. I ask the Minister to take a call and explain why. She will not because she knows the truth—that the Auckland District Health Board is dysfunctional. We hear this from every level. We hear from the highly committed professional nurses and doctors working there that under the new structure this Government has put in place there is endemic dysfunction. It is more than ironical that 14 years ago in 1989 the then Minister of Health—one Helen Clark—actually happened to call for the resignation of the board due to its dysfunction.