Menéndez March Ricardo; Verrall Ayesha; Pallett SarahRICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH (Green): Thank you Madam Chair. I'm just hoping to circle back to oral health and I guess to put to the Minister whether she thinks that the oral health of our communities is suffering because of the cost barrier to access treatment including check-ups—which the Minister touched on about the dental grant and the access to the dental grant in this year's Budget—and whether the exclusion of check-ups is actually contributing negatively to the oral health of our communities. Then to go back to my previous question I also wanted to get an understanding that beyond fluoridisation and initiatives that may provide targeted free toothbrushes for example what else is the Minister doing to reduce the cost barrier that many of our communities face to access treatment and have good oral health?Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL (Minister of Health): I thank the member Ricardo Menéndez March for reminding me of his question. Yeah indeed the purpose of the hardship grants is for treatment and a check-up is not included in that. However I agree with the member's point that it is beneficial to have them because that allows early treatment. However I'm not sure were we to do that whether the hardship grant would be the right mechanism for achieving a check-up which is a regular preventive part of one's healthcare. Indeed I am aware that cost is a barrier to accessing that and one that I am concerned about.I also thank the member for the question about health of children in schools and particularly in those cyclone-impacted areas. The Mana Ake programme is a well-tested programme—it grew out of the Christchurch and Kaikōura earthquakes—for mental health support for those little children who themselves and their families and their parents have gone through a disaster. One of the things that we learnt in Christchurch and from disasters around the world is that those mental health impacts can come on three years afterwards so the response to a disaster is phased. The Mana Ake funding was in the extreme weather events pre-Budget announcement and now Te Whatu Ora is working to set up Mana Ake in collaboration with the Ministry of Education and further work with schools in Hawke's Bay and Tairāwhiti. In general the whole system works on having very strong relationships with the local community between the kaimahi from the health system and education and those relationships are being developed now. As I said this is not part of an emergency response. It is about building the resilience over the months and years that follow and that is the reason why that does take some time.SARAH PALLETT (Labour—Ilam): Thank you so much Madam Chair. This has been a really interesting evening's conversation. My stepmother's just had cataract surgery although not here—in the UK—so I'm aware of the importance of that particular piece of work. Minister I would just like to talk a little bit more about the focus that this Government has on high-quality health infrastructure which we've seen and I was curious to hear a little bit more about the recent announcement of funding for the Nelson Hospital. I'd just love to know what this means in terms of a stronger health system for the people at the top of the South Island but also to follow up on what the Minister was talking about with regard to disaster preparedness. We've seen from the North Island weather events that there's obviously a really clear need to have a plan in place to reduce the devastation of future natural disasters and you were talking Minister about the effects of the Canterbury earthquakes on mental health. But I just wondered how the planned hospital would support people in the wider Nelson area and Wellington region as well should the worst happen and a significant earthquake occur on the Alpine Fault line?