16 August 2005

Media statement
For immediate use

Every Child Counts welcomes child-focused elements of United Future’s health policy

Every Child Counts welcomes the elements of United Future’s recently announced health policy which will help give every child a good start in life.

“Investing in child health makes good economic sense and should not be seen as a cost or burden on the tax payer. Turning around New Zealand’s mediocre performance in children’s health will take focused attention and resources,” said Murray Edridge, Every Child Counts spokesperson.

In particular, we welcome proposals to:

- Concentrate on antenatal and post-natal care of young mothers

- Fund Plunket adequately to ensure that every child receives their eight Well Child health checks in their first five years

- Establish health clinics within family service centres

- Establish itinerant health clinics in schools

- Promote immunisation information and informed parental decisions

- Increase funding for early identification of children with special needs and disabilities.

- Ensure DHBs invest more in children’s health.

Ensuring every child gets a good early start is a key policy goal of Every Child Counts.

Every Child Counts is a coalition including Barnardos, Plunket, Save the Children, Unicef NZ and AUT’s Institute of Public Policy, supported by more than 335 other organisations and thousands of individual supporters. It will be providing informed comment, sometimes critical, throughout the election campaign, identifying sensible or poor policy proposals from any political party from a children’s perspective.

The public are invited to demonstrate their support for the nation’s children by adding their names to the Every Child Counts campaign at: www.everychildcounts.org.nz

ENDS

© Scoop Media