Hutchison Paul: Intellectual Disability (Compulsory Care and Rehabilitation) Bill — Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee 
Hutchison Paul: Intellectual Disability (Compulsory Care and Rehabilitation) Bill — Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee 
[Volume:612;Page:9581] 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Port Waikato) 
: 
 Part 2 deals with principles and general duties. Once again I cannot help but note in clause 11 the term “care recipient”. I think it is referred to four times in about six lines—which is double the number of words we need. It is good to see the Minister in the chair and she may be able to take a call and explain the genesis of the somewhat redundant and wordy term “care recipient” rather than the use of the term that most people in New Zealand—in fact the world—know which is “patient” to mean a person who is receiving care or treatment. I would be very interested to hear what the Minister does have to say in that regard. She is nodding her head so as she is one of the leaders at the forefront of the politically correct brigade it will be very interesting to hear what she has to say. 
I will go on to clause 12 “Principles governing decisions affecting children and young persons”. Those principles do indeed seem thorough and on the whole I concur with them. There is the point that wherever possible the family whanau hapu iwi and family group of a child or young person should participate in the making of decisions affecting that child or young person and accordingly regard should be had to the views of the family whanau hapu iwi and family group. There is absolutely no doubt about that. The tragedy down in the South Island arose when there was a lack of involvement by the family. It was simply not listened to and a subsequent tragedy occurred when the young man killed his parent in that situation. So undoubtedly that is highly important. 
But one of the questions that hopefully the Minister will take a call on is how practically she will ensure that those ideals are lived up to in reality. How does one provide the service realistically? The Minister was one of a group that in the 1990s called shrilly time and time again for appropriate mental health services and facilities. Yet the reality of today is that we hear every day of the absolute mental health crisis in New Zealand and the lack of facilities. It is indeed an example of the forethought of Wyatt Creech who brought this bill into the House that provision was made for $50 million for both this bill and the Criminal Justice Amendment Bill (No 7) so that there would be money earmarked to ensure that appropriate facilities were there. However in reality we do not see that and I would be very interested if the Minister would take a call on that point. 
I move on to clause 13 “Powers to be exercised with proper respect for cultural identity and personal beliefs”. Again it is fine and appropriate to say that it is vital that proceedings are conducted with proper respect for the care recipient’s cultural and ethnic identity language and religious or ethical beliefs. I remember very well when I was a consultant at one of the hospitals and a woman from Iraq came in. She was a doctor and there happened to be a senior doctor from Iraq in attendance. As a male gynaecologist I deferred to that individual to take the woman’s history and carry out the treatment—something I normally do not do. As it happened the Iraqi senior doctor said the woman should be taken down to an operating theatre but just beforehand she called me to say that she was caught up in the emergency department and to ask me to do the operation. I went in only to find that a totally inappropriate operation had been ordered and the woman was anaesthetised. That operation was ordered by an overseas senior doctor whom I had organised to look after another Iraqi doctor. So in practice the reality of ensuring that cultural sensitivity does take place is very difficult.