Coleman Jonathan: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
Coleman Jonathan: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
[Volume:648;Page:17641] 
Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN (National—Northcote) 
: 
 I tell members that if there is one area that best sums up the way that this Government is failing it is health. If we look at Vote Health we see that nothing in it will make any difference. Expenditure on health has increased from $6 billion a year to $12 billion a year under this Government yet people still are not getting the care they need. 
We heard of several great examples during question time today. At 9 o’clock this morning there were no neonatal intensive care cots available throughout the country. The Government spends $12 billion a year yet we cannot make one cot available for the most sick most vulnerable babies born in New Zealand today. That is absolutely disgusting. 
Then in question No. 11 today we heard my colleague Paula Bennett ask the Minister of Health how many times the Waitakere Hospital accident and emergency department had been closed in the last year and the Minister answering on behalf of the Minister of Health got up and said none. Paula Bennett then said to the Minister that actually it was closed 52 times. That is absolutely incredible. The Waitakere Hospital accident and emergency department which is the department that the constituents of the Minister of Health have to go to was closed 52 times in the last year. There is $12 billion of health expenditure a year and the Government cannot even keep the Waitakere Hospital accident and emergency department open. 
Do members know what this Government does? When that department is closed patients are given vouchers to go down the road to a White Cross facility. Can members believe that? Despite the Government spending 12 billion bucks a year Labour goes to the ACT party for health policy! It is absolutely disgraceful. 
Let us look at what has happened in elective surgery. The Minister of Health has consistently told us he is going to provide more and more operations. Do members know what? In the area that I represent which comes under the Waitemata District Health Board less elective surgery was performed last year than in the first year of the district health board structure—actually fewer operations. When we consider that the population in the Waitemata District Health Board area has gone up by 14 percent over that time we can see that people are getting even less surgery on a per head basis than they were getting 6 years ago. That is the legacy of the Labour Government in health. 
I totally agree with the surgeon in Dunedin whom we heard about yesterday who said that the real tragedy about the health system under Labour is that working-class people cannot get access to the operations they need. If Labour members are not here to deliver a good health system for working-class people I do not know what they are here for. All the Labour members over there are just reading their notes; they know that what I am saying is absolutely true. They are failing in providing elective surgery and they are failing in providing neonatal intensive care. 
I can tell members where else the Government is failing: it is failing absolutely dismally in mental health services. What has the Minister’s response been? It has been to launch another strategy. Last week the Minister launched his latest effort  
Te Puawaiwhero 
. He gave exactly the same speech that was delivered the last time Labour announced a strategy which was 2 years ago. Under Labour mental health provision has been nothing but strategies plans and frameworks. Meanwhile ward 27 at Wellington Hospital represents another broken promise under Labour. This Government said that that ward would definitely be rebuilt and refurbished. What is happening? It is off the drawing board. What is happening? More and more people in the Wellington region are not getting the acute mental health services they need. 
I have today lodged a written question for the Minister to answer: how many people have committed suicide since that plan was scrapped? I will be very interested to see the answer because the reality is that when acute mental health services are not available things start going off the rails. People need to be able to get into hospital in their time of need. In terms of mental health provision there have been plans strategies and frameworks but not the services that people need. 
This Government cannot continue to make excuses because basically the spending goes up and the care goes down. People cannot get the care they need when they need it under a Labour Government. I tell members that when I talk to people in my electorate the Northcote electorate I find that they are saying that this Government has not delivered. They may have voted for it last time but they say that they will not make that mistake again because under Labour promises are broken. The state of play of elective surgery is absolutely disgraceful. Labour promised more and more operations and in actual fact we are getting fewer each year. The extra spending just has not worked. The people opposite have lost control of the situation. They have gone through three Ministers and each one is more desperate than the last. Meanwhile there is less elective surgery more people cannot get access to mental health care and there are no more neonatal intensive-care beds than there ever was. The situation is completely untenable. Things have got to change.