Doocey MattMATT DOOCEY (National—Waimakariri): Well thank you very much Madam Speaker. That last member who has resumed his seat should hang his head in shame as the chair of the Health Committee. Here we are in an urgent debate debating a report of a New Zealander who died because they could not get access to timely healthcare and all he was intent on was trotting out the Labour Party talking points—the Labour Party lines. Let's go to the report—let's go directly to it—which says It is important to note that at no stage was the patient at fault here. The overloaded and under pressure health system failed her." This is every New Zealander's worst nightmare: that one of their loved ones is going to go to the emergency department in a time of need and not find the access to the care that they need. The report says an overloaded and under pressure health system failed her but listen to all the Labour callers today and all you hear is the good things they're doing in the health system. Well that might be true. I suppose that is the role of the Government to do some good things but don't gloss over the huge cracks that are in the health system today.I challenge the many New Zealanders listening to this urgent debate today to go back and listen and watch the call of Andrew Little the Minister of Health and then compare it to Dr Shane Reti the Opposition health spokesperson. I say to New Zealanders who do you want as your next Health Minister: a doctor or an angry trade unionist? He was warned that his reforms that he pushed through in the middle of a pandemic would undermine the health system and that's what they've done. Their own Heather Simpson report said to reduce 20 district health boards down to eight to 12 and what do they do? Twenty to zero in the middle of a pandemic and they've got the gall to call into question the last National Government. Well under the last National Government when you look at the six-hour waiting time target 91 percent of New Zealanders were getting through the emergency department (ED) in six hours. That was in 2017. Five years later it is only 78 percent of New Zealanders—78 percent. That's what we're seeing under this Government that will come to their five-year anniversary in the next few weeks: five years of failure. What they did is they repealed those health targets that incentivised and drove the right behaviour. How can you defend a reduction from 91 percent of New Zealanders who pitched up to ED and were getting seen in six hours and now we only have 78 percent? On top of that as Dr Shane Reti has revealed today 5000 New Zealanders a month are just walking away from the ED and not even being seen and do you know what? When you look at the evidence and the research behind that health target the evidence showed that that target saved 700 lives a year—700 lives—and this Government came in and scrapped that target.Let's remember Ms A which is the name they've given in the report to this lady who sadly passed away when she didn't get access to the timely care she needed. She turned up to the emergency department. The report says there were only 30 seats in that ED. There were 46 people already in there—a huge over-occupancy. There were three nurses down that morning—a 10 percent vacancy—and basically what they were saying to New Zealanders who were turning up in that emergency department that morning was that the wait time was some hours. That's what it was—some hours. As Dr Shane Reti has rightly pointed out in the report this was highlighted a week before as the pressure grew on this emergency department. What we know about emergency departments is that they are a barometer for that health system. That is the access point that people need for that acute care. What we know in New Zealand today is sadly thanks to this Government—because I tell you what what's propping up the health system at the moment is hard-working Kiwis in the health workforce. But slowly under this Labour Government we are seeing our health system turn into a second-world health system because of five years of mismanagement from this Government. We desperately need more health workforce in New Zealand. We can't sustain this level of vacancies and the reduced access to vital healthcare. We need to retain our health workforce. We need to ensure we're working with them because of course if we've got our health workforce having to cover vacant roles and they're already stretched we're just burning them out. We need to train more of our health professionals. I'm sure that the callers from Labour will get up and say what they're going to do in the future. Well that's fine but you've had five years and what have you done? Why have we got skyrocketing vacancies in our health workforce? What's galling is just the ideological position this Government's taken around skilled migrants. New Zealand is a popular destination for an international health workforce but you've got to be more than popular. You've got to be competitive and we're not competitive. Canada Australia—they're all cutting our lunch at the moment and that workforce who would like to come and live in New Zealand are getting attracted with better entitlements in other countries. We're just not there because this Labour Government ideologically refuses to accept that part of the solution—yes let's retain our workforce and let's re-train our locals but we need to attract skilled migrants and that's what we're not doing at the moment. It's hugely concerning when we look at our health system that is under so much pressure and we see that in our reports. The report we're debating today says "Research has repeatedly shown that ED overcrowding leads to increased morbidity … and increased mortality. Of note ED overcrowding leads to an increase in patients not waiting for assessment and/or treatment." That's exactly what happened in this case when you read the report. A person turned up to an overstretched ED where the warnings had been there the week before in their reports but they had no ability to respond. A New Zealander turned up in the early hours of the morning and left because she couldn't get the care she needed. The person who wrote the report goes on to say "The evidence provided to me strongly reflects an overcrowded ED a hospital well over acceptable capacity and subsequent system dysfunction. I strongly suspect that it is only through the exceptional hard work and dedication from staff that there are not many more serious incidents occurring that affects patient safety. This is an unsafe environment for both patients and staff and is not sustainable." So what New Zealanders want is a health Minister who is going to take some responsibility and is going to take some accountability show some leadership and accept the crisis that we are in today. There is an ability to respond quickly if this Government accepts the position we're in but when you listen to the Government callers today in this urgent debate there's denial. There are heads in the sand. There's great hyperbole about what they've done. Well if it's that good why are the numbers of New Zealanders who get seen in six hours dramatically reduced under this Labour Government?"