"The Health Minister's so-called pre-Budget announcement to retrain overseas doctors is a joke - she has failed to deliver one dollar more than National already had in place," Opposition Health spokesperson Wyatt Creech said today.

"The $11.8million over three years had already been set aside by National last year when we announced retraining for foreign doctors.

"Annette King and Labour can't take any credit for it.

"It is disappointing she has taken so long to review the retraining initiatives. Six months is too long - the retraining is overdue.

"The package of re-training initiatives that National announced in November had a price tag $4.9million in the first year, $5.4million in the second and $1.5million in the third.

"Annette King has re-jigged the initiatives but has not come up with any more money.

"New Zealanders are expecting an awful lot from Annette King in this Budget. Labour and the Alliance have raised expectations through the roof that hundreds of millions more dollars will be delivered into health services.

"The pressure is on the Health Minister to deliver big time in Thursday's Budget. No-one will be fooled by her re-packaging National's initiatives and money."

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