Ryall Tony: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
Ryall Tony: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
[Volume:641;Page:11427] 
3.  
Hon TONY RYALL (National—Bay of Plenty) 
 to the  
Minister of Health 
: What did he mean when he said: “There are many reasons for increased numbers at emergency departments one of which paradoxically is the improvement in service.”? 
Hon PETE HODGSON (Minister of Health) 
: 
 What I meant can be found in the two sentences after that quote. Let me read the member the full quote. It had come as a reply to a question in the House a couple of months ago from Barbara Stewart of New Zealand First. She had asked a question regarding after-hours general practitioner services and emergency departments. I had replied: “There are many reasons for increased numbers at emergency departments one of which paradoxically is the improvement in service. After-hours arrangements vary from district health board to district health board and include general practitioner services being co-located alongside emergency departments in some cases. It seems to work quite well for some district health boards.” That is what I meant. 
Hon Tony Ryall 
: When the Minister listed yesterday a number of hospitals that are not providing an adequate service why did he leave out Palmerston North Hospital where an 8-year-old girl who broke both her arms in a schoolyard accident waited 5 hours even to get painkillers? 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: I have said to the member on many occasions that I am not able to answer questions around the details of individual cases. I am really happy to look into that case should the member wish to raise it with me—perhaps in writing so that I have the young person’s name. I am very happy to do that. Indeed anyone is entitled to lodge a complaint if he or she feels that the service received in an emergency department or any other part of a district health board is not up to scratch. 
Hon Tony Ryall 
: Has the Minister thought about the impact of the emergency department crisis not only on the patients but also on the medical staff working in our emergency departments; and are reports correct that at 1 o’clock this morning with patients lined up top to tail on trolleys in corridors at North Shore Hospital a woman clinician collapsed saying: “I can’t do this any more.”? 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: I have not heard of those reports and I certainly hope they are not true because it would be a very serious matter if a clinician collapsed while on duty. I will say however that 12 years ago at that same district health board at the same time of the day—1 o’clock in the morning—an 80-year-old with a broken arm was thrown out of the hospital and told to make her own way home in her nightie. She got home at 9 o’clock in the morning. 
Sue Moroney 
: Are district health boards expanding the size of their emergency departments or the number of their in-patient beds given that these are possible bottlenecks during the annual winter flu season? 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: Yes they are because the Government has given district health boards the money they need in order to expand where expansion is necessary. I mentioned in the House earlier that in the cases of North Shore Hospital and Waitakere Hospital in-patient beds are opening next month. Further beds in those two hospitals will open the following year. To give the member another example I note that the number of cubicles in Christchurch Hospital’s emergency department will be increased by 16 before next year’s winter flu peak and I think that takes the number from 39 to 55. So yes hospitals can increase their capacity because this Government invests in health. 
Hon Tony Ryall 
: Who does the Minister think he is kidding with these stories about action being taken when in fact it was his Prime Minister who promised she would remedy these situations so much so that she promised Grey Power: “When the winter crop of influenza bad asthma and other problems hit our hospitals in many centres just couldn’t cope. Patients were left in armchairs corridors operating theatres and conference rooms. When an old person needs a hospital bed a Labour Government is going to make sure they get it and they can stay for as long as they like.”; and she has been there 8 years and absolutely nothing has happened despite the $5 billion? 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: There is a bit of a routine in this House where the member who has just resumed his seat makes a statement to the effect that we have spent an extra 4 or 5 billion dollars and nothing has happened. Let me now tell him again some of the things that have happened. We have 4000 extra nurses who did not exist before in our hospitals. We have 1300 or thereabouts extra doctors in our hospitals whom we did not have at the time of the change of Government. We have been building new hospitals from Kaitaia to Invercargill inclusive. Some of them are little hospitals and some of them are big hospitals. One of the biggest is just down the road here in Wellington. Hundreds of millions of dollars have gone into new hospitals. We have new beds new services new approaches to the range of care we are offering— 
Madam SPEAKER 
: It is impossible to hear. I will have to ask members to leave the Chamber if this continues. Would the Minister please complete his answer in silence. 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: I will need to do so succinctly which is a shame because the range of improved health services under this Government goes on for page after page. 
Hon Tony Ryall 
: Is the reason why the Minister had to rely on the Prime Minister to advise him of the difficult state of North Shore Hospital summed up in this comment by a  
New Zealand Herald  
reader who said: “To the people languishing on Pete Hodgson’s waiting lists my sincere sympathy. The health minister is more focused on the bed the National Party leader sleeps in than finding one for you. Hang your head in shame Mr Hodgson.”? 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: There is one simple difference between the Leader of the Opposition and myself and it is that whenever a question is put to me I answer it and whenever a question is put to Mr Key he does not. He has a series of questions that remain unanswered and I will continue to ask them. 
Dr Jackie Blue 
: Has it occurred to the Minister that as the public health system crashes down around him mums and dads just want essential services like emergency departments fixed; or is it that Labour’s great strategist is happiest when wallowing and swimming around in sewers more concerned about where MPs live than the state of our health services? 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: The Opposition has decided to go for a bit of a ritual gumming. The front page of the  
Dominion Post  
that the member held up to indicate that the health system is again in crisis is a projection out to 2026 stating that we will need a lot more surgeons. We already know that which is why we are training more surgeons which is why the number of surgeons in New Zealand continues to rise. Actually the projections of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons are if anything a little under what is likely to be needed. It is really good of it to do that workforce planning. I am grateful to it; it is not the first time it has done it but I do not think there is a crisis. You see if one has investment in the health system on one’s mind one does manage to increase the services available to New Zealanders reliably. 
Hon Tony Ryall 
: I seek leave to table information that shows that for every one of the 1200 extra doctors employed under the Labour Government there is a matching new bureaucrat. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There is objection.