Wait to get on a waiting list gets longer

The wait to get on a surgery waiting list is getting longer, says National’s Health spokeswoman Judith Collins.

“Patients are being forced to wait longer, and get sicker, before they can get on the official waiting list, let alone get the operations they desperately need.“

Only five of twenty-one District Health Boards are meeting their targets for reassessing Active Review patients. Surgery is considered the best option for the care of these patients, either immediately or in the foreseeable future.

Ms Collins says six months is a long time for sick person to wait, let alone waiting longer than that.

“The health system is plagued with problems, and it’s going from bad to worse. The Government’s fast-expanding bureaucratic health monster is slowing up operations and ultimately costing lives.

“And it is sick Kiwis who pay the price with longer waiting times, growing waiting lists, delayed surgery, and overflowing A&E departments,” Ms Collins said.

© Scoop Media

Gordon Campbell: On the Sony cyber attack

Given the layers of meta-irony involved, the saga of the Sony cyber attack seemed at the outset more like a snarky European art film than a popcorn entry at the multiplex.

Yet now with (a) President Barack Obama weighing in on the side of artistic freedom and calling for the US to make a ‘proportionate response’quickly followed by (b) North Korea’s entire Internet service going down, and with both these events being followed by (c) Sony deciding to backtrack and release The Interview film that had made it a target for the dastardly North Koreans in the first place, then ay caramba…the whole world will now be watching how this affair pans out. More>>