Dyson Ruth: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
Dyson Ruth: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
[Volume:665;Page:12607] 
5. 
Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills) 
 to the  
Minister of Health 
: Is he comfortable with the numerous announcements of health cuts in the last 20 months? 
Hon PETER DUNNE (Associate Minister of Health) 
 on behalf of the  
Minister of Health 
: There have been no cuts in the health budget in the last 20 months. In fact Government funding for health services has increased by $1.3 billion in that time $1 billion of which has gone to district health boards. 
Hon Ruth Dyson 
: Does he think that the people who are waiting in corridors without even a corridor bed at North Shore Hospital’s emergency department will agree with him about no health cuts or will they find his total lack of action to help them rather confusing given his noisy attacks against health staff at that hospital on this very issue in the winter of 2007? 
Hon PETER DUNNE 
: I should point out to the member that funding for that particular district health board has increased by over $100 million in the last couple of years. The issue of how it deploys that funding is a matter for the district health board. Perhaps I could give the member an analogy. This is about reprioritisation in just the same way as the previous Government reprioritised $110 million out of the health system just before the last election. [ 
Interruption 
] 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member has to have a reasonable chance to ask a supplementary question. 
Hon Ruth Dyson 
: What does he say to the nurses in Taihape at Otaihape Health who have been told to take a 30 percent pay cut or the hospital in which they work will be closed? 
Hon PETER DUNNE 
: The advice that I have received is that that matter is currently the subject of negotiations with the Whanganui District Health Board. It is grossly inappropriate for Ministers to intervene in an industrial relations process—something that I thought the members of the party opposite would well understand. 
Dr Paul Hutchison 
: What recent reports has he seen on improved front-line services? 
Hon PETER DUNNE 
: I have seen some reports that indicate a number of improvements over the last 20 months. For instance we now have shorter emergency department waiting-times a record rise of some 13000 patients getting additional elective surgery last year shorter waiting-times for cancer treatment higher levels of fully immunised 2-year-olds and over 240000 New Zealanders now getting access to medicines that they were not getting previously. 
Hon Ruth Dyson 
: What does he say to the good people of Taihape who face losing all their locally delivered front-line health services if their hospital is closed; or will he wash his hands of that responsibility as well? 
Hon PETER DUNNE 
: The member is jumping to a number of unwarranted conclusions. There is no suggestion that the closure of that hospital is in the pipeline. The reality is that the matter of the processes that are being gone through between the staff of the district health board and their employer should be left to resolve itself. 
Hon Ruth Dyson 
: What if anything will he do to support the elderly man who has dementia and Parkinson’s disease who is being held in Rimutaka Prison not because of his risk to the community but because nobody can find a health-funded home for him to live in? 
Hon PETER DUNNE 
: If the member cares to take up that case directly with the Minister’s office it will be addressed.