Goodhew Jo: Financial Review Debate — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Goodhew Jo: Financial Review Debate — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 12 March 2013. Volume:688;Page:8438. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon JO GOODHEW (Associate Minister of Health) 
: 
 It gives me great pleasure and pride to rise this evening in the Chamber to talk about the progress that has been made under this National Government as we address the financial review debate. But I want to begin by speaking briefly about the previous Opposition speaker Annette King who conducted herself in a way that could best be described as dealing in personal attacks on the Minister of Health. She signalled that she would deal in personal attacks and nameless gossip. Lastly I think the best descriptor of that member’s claims—and they have been going on now for a couple of weeks—is simply “wildly imaginative”. 
I want to deal first with the claims she has made repeatedly about the Ashburton Hospital facing cutbacks. This has really pained the people of mid-Canterbury because they are on edge. They have lost their theatres because of earthquake damage and they are waiting for the date when these theatres will be rebuilt. The Minister himself has signalled that they will be rebuilt— 
Sue Moroney 
: When? What date? 
Hon JO GOODHEW 
: —repeatedly and in print I say to the member. The Minister has signalled that and the chief executive of the district health board has said that it pains him greatly to have to come out again and say in the newspaper: “There is no doubt. Nothing is being cut. Nothing at all.” The people of mid-Canterbury are saying: “Well clearly we cannot trust this Labour Party spokesperson who is simply feeding us wildly imaginative tales and worrying us about our health services.” Absolute bollocks it is—absolute bollocks. 
Sue Moroney 
: Be honest. That’s not what they are saying at all. 
Hon JO GOODHEW 
: I am finding it really difficult to not laugh out loud right now. 
So let us go back to what we saw under the previous Labour Government and then move on to the good news under this National Government. Waste and bureaucracy—those 30000 patients who were culled off the waiting lists. Patients waited for up to 15 weeks for cancer radiation treatment. Many were sent to Australia. Do we remember those front-page headlines of those patients who went to Australia? I certainly do. One story close to my heart was that funding for PlunketLine was cut despite demand from parents but National reinstated it. And during all those years the Labour Government said that rheumatic fever was a priority. Yes well we do not really imagine that we saw any evidence of action on that front. 
Just to briefly go over some of the things that have been achieved—because I think that members of this Committee particularly Opposition members should remember that when we talk about numbers we are not talking about just figures on a piece of paper; we are talking about human lives. We are talking about children we are talking about mums and dads and babies and these are the very New Zealanders who are gaining from the National Government’s performance. E-health is an important one. The Ministry of Health continues to facilitate e-health and we have got 14 district health boards already transferring patient records electronically to new general practitioners. 
But I want to talk about some of those numbers. Shorter waiting times in emergency departments have risen from 80 percent in 2009 to 94 percent of patients being seen treated or discharged from hospitals in 6 hours by the end of 2011-12. In terms of improving access to elective surgery in 2007-08 there were 118000 procedures completed and in 2011-12 there were a record 154000. The numbers speak for themselves. They are real people who had procedures done on them. The percentage of patients receiving radiation treatment within 4 weeks—100 percent achieved. Members that is a stunning achievement because what that means is people getting treatment for their cancers. Immunisation of 2-year-olds has risen from 82 percent in 2009-10 when we started measuring the performance to 93 percent in the 2011-12 year. It has gone so well that we have changed the target to the earlier target date of 8 months meaning babies’ lives will be saved. Better diabetes and cardiovascular services—by 2014 90 percent of the eligible population will have had their cardiovascular risk assessed within the last 5 years. 
We are helping smokers to quit smoking. In 2007 only 18 percent of smokers in hospitals were offered assistance to quit. By 2011-12 84.6 percent— 
Report noted.