van Velden BrookeBROOKE VAN VELDEN (Deputy Leader—ACT): Thank you Madam Speaker. I move That the House take note of a matter of urgent public importance.People put their faith in this Government every single day that the Government will act with the best intentions to keep them safe—keep them safe from harm. We especially expect this to be done in a time of crisis like the COVID response. That's why New Zealanders have tuned into announcements every day during lockdowns to make sure they're hearing the most up-to-date information about what they can do to keep others in their community safe to keep their family safe and to make sure that if they are ill or they have COVID they know how to keep other members of their community safe. We are all collectively working hard to make sure that we get through this COVID response together. People have stayed at home. They've done the right thing. People who have had positive COVID tests have turned themselves in for managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ) spots and done the right thing to prevent infections and spread throughout the community. People have been at home for months with their kids making sure that they're not putting their own children in harm's way. And people have sadly been missing their cancer appointments and their screenings and diagnosis. A lot of people have put their lives on hold because the Government has asked us to do the right thing.In exchange the expectation is that the Government will do the right thing by New Zealanders and that they will take on that duty of care and work hard to put New Zealanders first and put our safety first. But this hasn't happened. New Zealanders have the right to expect good government and expect an efficient system that puts them first. The system has failed New Zealanders and in this particular case it has failed two New Zealanders who have died as a result of home isolation. I want to acknowledge those people who may be watching who are family members or friends of those two people who died while at home isolating and doing the right thing.But we have to acknowledge how we ended up in this situation. The Government failed in its duty of care to New Zealanders by consistently being slow off the mark throughout the entire COVID response. We have been slow to put systems in place since COVID hit our shores last year. We've had vaccines: they took ages to actually get procured and come to New Zealand and be put in arms. We've had the vaccine roll-out still to this day not be complete but the vaccine passport at the same time wasn't done in tandem and that's taken extra time too. We've seen delays when it came to rapid antigen testing and putting that in place in communities when it could've been done months ago. When we had home isolation we knew from talking to doctors in the community that they were asking for this to be put in place months before the Government actually rolled it out. They were slow making sure that we had a plan to keep New Zealanders safe in their homes. And we have been slow with basic things like making sure that we have ICU capacity in the hospitals. We had 18 months and not a single new ICU bed put in place. And we've also had nurse shortages. You know I talked to a woman who was locked out of New Zealand and she was a critical care ICU nurse without her family here in New Zealand struggling to get back through the border because she wasn't seen as essential to the COVID response to get back through the border. That's how slow and badly planned this COVID response has been.But when it comes to self-isolation we weren't prepared for Delta at all. We had at the beginning of this latest lockdown MIQ that was being used and we knew that the cases would increase as people ran out of MIQ spots. And that's exactly what happened. So the Government rolled out self-isolation and they weren't prepared for what that would actually mean in reality. They announced it after we went into a Delta outbreak. That's why I've brought this debate to Parliament—because people have died at home at home while they have been isolating away from the community.Last week we saw findings of a review into home isolation that said that these deaths were potentially preventable deaths. Deaths that are preventable is extremely significant to Parliament. This is one of the largest errors that policy can make—to lead to potential preventable deaths. There is nothing more significant to people than that they would lose their lives from an error of Parliament and an error of the Government.I have a real concern and the ACT Party has a real concern with what this means for New Zealanders now. We have thousands of people who are currently isolating at home and as we go into summer as we see the COVID protection framework being rolled out which is more commonly referred to as the traffic light system" this means that more people will be moving around the country more people will be contracting COVID-19 and we will see more cases in the community self-isolating. We need to know that the system will actually be prepared for an increased number of cases and that people will have care when they're doing the right thing by isolating and staying out of the community. It is absolutely essential that we are scrutinising what is happening because people deserve good care; they have a right to it. If we're asking people to stay home we need to ensure that they have faith in the system so that they actually do it. This debate I have to stress is not about politics; it is about people. It is about people because people have lost their lives. Two people have died and more are potentially at risk currently self-isolating.The Minister of Health Andrew Little stood in Parliament two weeks ago after I questioned him in the House and I asked "Does he have confidence in the home isolation system?" And the Minister assured me that he did have confidence in the system. He also raised that every person who is COVID positive and isolating at home should have a clinical assessment from a GP or another competent clinician if a GP is not available to assess them when they get a positive case. He also said that we do have metrics for clinical assessment.But if you look at what has been coming out of these report findings what the Minister and the people in charge and the Government have been saying is completely different to what the doctors and the people working on the front lines of the COVID response have been seeing in their communities. Papakura GP Dr Harwood said that top officials said that protocols were being followed but that the kōrero on the ground was completely different. People weren't having contact with public health and pulse oximeters weren't being issued to people who did have a positive case. The Counties Manukau chief executive and spokeswoman for the Auckland home isolation system said that the system buckled under pressure.We need to know that the system can continue going forward and we have so many questions because the findings of this review said that there were problems with assessments and clinical safety welfare needs mental wellbeing of COVID-19 patients issues with connectivity between all parts of the system to ensure clinical oversight. There was a need for stronger clinical governance for adequate reporting systems and rapid informed review of adverse events.I don't want to go too in depth into the cases of the two people who died out of respect for their families but there are some issues that do need to be addressed. In the case of case A it took five days before Healthline even attempted to call him because the system was overloaded with patients. When Healthline calls went unanswered the case was not escalated as a case for priority. The man's whānau were not contacted after he was unable to be reached by Healthline. And his GP first received a written contact eight days after he tested positive.In the case of case B the information about his ill health when he was discharged from hospital was not shared with Healthline despite it being recorded by the hospital staff. The administration of medication that created an artificial sense of patient wellbeing was never considered in an initial or follow-up clinical assessment. Data from his pulse oximeter was not adequately collected because he had difficulty using it. And a backlogged system meant the appropriate action was not taken when he was determined to be in need of urgent medical review.The Government and the system failed two New Zealanders and the ACT Party has questions about what went wrong. We know that we've seen some of these report findings but importantly we need to know what changes have been made to the system so that this doesn't happen again for another New Zealander. We need to know that as we go into summer thousands of New Zealanders will be safe they will get the adequate care that they deserve and they won't be another one—another person who is let down and loses their life because of bad public policy.We need to know where the pulse oximeters are for every person who's got them. We know that the Minister says we have nearly 30000 pulse oximeters in New Zealand and yet we're not issuing them in every case. I don't understand why we are giving different abilities of care to different New Zealanders throughout the country. Every person should be expected to receive the same amount of care when they are at home.Why isn't the Ministry of Health as available as it should be to New Zealanders? Why are some people spending days waiting for a phone call while others will receive them within 24 hours? Why is there not more consistency with the calls? And why is it that some people when we're being promised that they'll be contacted by a GP or somebody who's clinically trained are not being contacted by these people? They are being contacted by people who have already gone to the media and said "We are not adequately trained to deal with this." I think that is very disappointing.The actions going forward are that every person should be issued a pulse oximeter. There are thousands of them. We should give them to everybody not just the ones that the Minister believes are clinically assessed for it. We should be ensuring that GPs and clinically trained people are contacting people who are COVID positive within 24 hours of them having their positive test and then being at home. We need to ensure that the Minister is being transparent. It's not good enough that the Government can stand up and say that they have confidence in the system and say things are working well when people who are on the front line are painting a very different picture. We need to know what's going wrong so it can be rectified. The Government needs scrutiny because people have a right to know what is actually going on. New Zealanders need to know that if they get sick and if they stay at home they have certainty that they will get good care. There are thousands of people who are currently sitting at home wondering "Will I be next? Will that happen to me? How am I supposed to know how to keep care of myself if people are not contacting me to know how I'm supposed to do that?"I want to just end on acknowledging the two people that did die. I think it is a real shame that this Government and its systems led to that and I think we can do better and we have to do better for all of those other New Zealanders who are currently self-isolating and who will be self-isolating over summer. We need to provide certainty that they will get the care that they need. Thank you Madam Speaker."