Paul Hutchison MP National Party Health Spokesman

1 June 2005

Patients culled without 'active monitoring'

Patients culled from DHB waiting lists are being left with no idea how or when they will be 'actively monitored', says National's Health spokesman, Paul Hutchison.

In Parliament, Minister of Health Annette King has stated: "people are not culled. They are sent to their general practitioners to be monitored".

Dr Hutchison says Mr Leon Draper, a patient with a serious deteriorating arterial condition, has been told after a year of waiting that he will not even be given a first specialist assessment, and has been referred back to his GP for 'active monitoring'.

"The problem is, this patient has been given no indication of how or when this so-called monitoring will take place," says Dr Hutchison.

"A recent survey shows 73.8% of people think the health system is the same or worse under Labour, despite billions upon billions of extra funding being poured in.

"How can Labour claim its health system is working when it is resorting to culling patients off waiting lists, just to make those lists look more palatable?

"Patients like Mr Draper deserve an explanation as to how precisely they are going to be 'actively monitored', when they are not even allowed to see a specialist in the first place," says Dr Hutchison.

ENDS

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