Hon Ruth Dyson

Health Spokesperson

4 November 2009 Media Statement
National wont monitor complex health issues

National has admitted it has committed the ultimate PR spin on difficult health issues, it simply will not monitor them, Labour Health spokesperson Ruth Dyson says.

“Yesterday Health Minister Tony Ryall trumpeted that he will publish Emergency Department waiting times in newspapers so the public can measure how well their hospitals are doing, but they will simply not count the people who don’t make it into the system. He declared his government was not going to engage in unnecessarily complex monitoring.

“Unfortunately a public health system has to engage in a range of issues from simple to complex. The people of Timaru who face a cut of 5,000 people annually at their Emergency Department will be questioning how real the figures of waiting times published in their region are. The public deserve honesty.

“In May this year Tony Ryall took a razor to previously established health targets. Targets on obesity prevention, oral health and mental health which are complex health issues, along with how we can decrease the numbers of people who get admitted to hospital through an entirely preventable situation were cut.

“A 2006 study shows that potentially ‘avoidable admissions’ to Christchurch Hospital comprised 31 percent of all hospital admissions, with a total cost of $96.6 million.

“It takes a coordinated approach across the health sector and reaching into the community to address this issue.

“In other words its complex and the work will need to be done by professionals inside hospitals and in the community.

“Tony Ryall has demonstrated that he will not measure things like the cost of a teenager developing diabetes, the cost of an 80 year old falling and breaking their hip or the cost of someone with severe to moderate depression in his rose-hued public health system,” Ruth Dyson said.

ENDS

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