Barbara Stewart MP

Spokesperson for Health
25 AUGUST 2016

CANCER TREATMENT A FAILURE UNDER NATIONAL

The government should be ashamed that the latest health targets reveal not a single District Health Board (DHB) in New Zealand has met the target to provide faster cancer treatment, New Zealand First says.

“To date, no DHB has been able to meet the target of 85% of patients receiving treatment within 62 days of being referred with high suspicion of cancer,” says Health Spokesperson Barbara Stewart

“The target has been revised to 14 days which is setting up the DHBs to fail unless more resources are urgently allocated by the government.

“Eleven out of the 20 DHBs actually did worse than the previous quarter showing that they are struggling to meet demand.

“New Zealand is rapidly falling behind comparative countries in our cancer care. We have the 13th highest rate of all cancers in the world and our mortality rate is consistently worse than Australia’s.

“These results should be a wakeup call for the government to urgently invest in this area.

“New Zealand First would implement a national strategy to address cancer treatment,” says Mrs Stewart.

ENDS

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