Stewart Barbara: Estimates Debate — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeStewart Barbara: Estimates Debate — In Committee[Sitting date: 30 July 2013. Volume:692;Page:12082. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]BARBARA STEWART (NZ First):I am very pleased to take a call in the estimates debate. At this point in time New Zealand First is appalled at the way that the health system is being managed. The focus is totally on outputs rather than on outcomes and this is being actively encouraged by the Government. Ensuring that the numbers are right—and we hear a lot about the numbers—is not the best outcome for people who are waiting for operations and assessments. People are being shifted around on the waiting lists for years. They are having their cases reviewed regularly within the 6 months but there is no action no real attempt to get them off the waiting lists. Yet the overall view—and we have heard it from Dr Hutchison—is that hospitals are meeting their output criteria.There is no thought of outcomes for individuals. One lady I was talking to over the adjournment is waiting for a cataract operation. She started waiting 2½ years ago. She is now fearful that when she goes to sit her driver’s licence later in the year because it needs to be renewed she is going to fail because she is unable to see as well as she should and is unable to see as well as she could if she had a cataract operation.Today I also got a letter from a gentleman who has been waiting for a cardiology test. Semi-urgent is the classification that has come back from the hospital: “Although your referral is semi-urgent we are unable to offer you an immediate appointment. However it is our intention to ensure people do not wait longer than necessary and with that in mind an appointment time will be forwarded to you by mail as soon as is practicable.” When is that appointment time? It is 2 January 2014. This letter was actually written by the MidCentral District Health Board on 16 May 2013. Is there any guarantee that that gentleman will still be around in 2014? As he said he has paid his taxes. He has never been to hospital and asked for an operation but he really believes that he needs this operation and it sounds as if he should get it. This is a totally appalling state of affairs. How many other people are out there in exactly the same situation who have not contacted anybody?New Zealand First would say that many people are sitting and waiting patiently trying and struggling to get the care that they need from the health system. Surely it is far better for people to be able to get out and about rather than be sitting at home with all of the problems that that can create. We need to keep people active and involved in the community. We hear enough about the horrors of rest homes. Making sure that the statistics are right and that they read well is not helping people.The second issue that I want to bring up is the issue of hepatitis C. The Government does not seem to consider this to be a priority which is absolutely horrifying considering the lack of concrete data there is about hepatitis C infections in New Zealand. We acknowledge that the national community support programmes are reallygreat for New Zealanders already infected with hepatitis C and we would like to see these progress but infection control standards for unregistered tattooists and youth-focused awareness programmes on transmission are needed to reduce the number of new infections. The Government is focusing on being the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff rather than on building a fence at the top. The Government needs to take this opportunity to regulate the back-alley tattoo industry rather than sit back and wait for disaster to happen.Basically we believe that people are far more important than statistics on throughput. This seems to be the health record of this Government which is appalling. Just recently talking to some young first-year medical students who cannot get a placement—