Tolley Anne: Debate on Crown Entities Public Organisations and State Enterprises — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeTolley Anne: Debate on Crown Entities Public Organisations and State Enterprises — In Committee[Sitting date: 17 June 2014. Volume:699;Page:18563. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon ANNE TOLLEY (Minister of Police):It gives me great pleasure to stand and talk about the wonderful job that the Bay of Plenty District Health Board has done. If you look at the statistics I think they speak for themselves and they deserve to be heard in this House. First of all can I congratulate the Minister of Health because he has overseen a funding increase to this district health board over the last 5 years of an extra $127 million.Dr Cam Calder: How much?Hon ANNE TOLLEY: It is $127 million extra to the Bay of Plenty District Health Board. That has then enabled that health board to deliver some of the most amazing results. We have seen that it has employed more staff. We have had 67 more doctors and 132 more nurses employed by this district health board—again over the last 5 years. More important than even the staff and in any district health board I do not want to underestimate the effect and the work that the staff do but actually health care is all about patients. What we have seen through the extra funding and the extra staff is that over 11000 more patients have been treated for electives than were treated under Labour. That is an increase of 11215 more patients treated than were treated under the Labour Government—over 11000. The particular one that affects many many people particularly in my electorate is orthopaedic surgery and we have seen a 52 percent increase in orthopaedic surgeries carried out by the Bay of Plenty District Health Board. That is people’s hips knees and all the other bits and pieces that they have replaced and I think that that is something to thank all those staff working in the health board for. They have delivered it across quite a big area. It goes right up to the tip of the East Cape so they are large rural areas.The most exciting event I think in the last year was the opening by the Minister of Health last week of the rebuilt Whakatāne Hospital and $67 million was contributed by this National-led Government to rebuild the Whakatāne Hospital. A great deal of planning and hard work went into that. It is quite interesting that when I became the MP for the East Coast electorate there was a lot of talk around what was going to happen to the Whakatāne Hospital. It had severe asbestos and seismic problems and under the previous Labour Government consultation meetings were held and all sorts were talked about the replacement of the Whakatāne Hospital. But when we came into Government when National came into Government what do you think we found? There had been a lot of talk but actually the money cupboard was bare. There was no money allocated. In fact despite all the community consultation and all the discussions that the health board had had with the community the Whakatāne Hospital was not even on the list for capital improvements.I went to work and fortunately the Minister of Health was sympathetic because this Whakatāne area serves an enormous rural area. It is an area that takes in many many small communities that are very low in the social deprivation scales. People have severe transport difficulties but they also have severe health issues. The thought of having to go from the tip of the East Cape to Tauranga Hospital was just ridiculous. The health care of the people of that Eastern Bay of Plenty area would have severely suffered if this National Government had not stepped in and spent $67 million on rebuilding the Whakatāne Hospital. To the Minister of Health I want to say I know that my constituents are exceedingly grateful for the work that this John Key - led National Government has done because we put our money where our mouth is. We did not just talk about it; we got out there and we rebuilt it. The hospital had an open day that attracted over 2000 people to come and have a look through the rebuilt hospital and last week Minister Ryall and I officially opened the hospital. That means our region has high-quality health care.