The Labour Party has dispatched one of its powerbrokers to Tauranga to test public feeling on what it considers to be two of the big political issues affecting the region.
They are cuts to health services due to what the party calls 'chronic underfunding of the health budget” and the effects the city's housing crisis is having on health, particularly children in the community.
Labour's deputy leader and spokesperson for health Annette King. Photo: Mark Taylor/Fairfax NZ
Labour's deputy leader and spokesperson for health Annette King will hold a public meeting at the Wesley Centre on 13th Avenue at 1.30pm this Thursday.
The party claims $1.7 billion has been slashed from the health budget since National has been the Government – meaning last year 45,000 New Zealanders were sent back to their GPs without getting to see the specialists they were referred to.
And the statistics show the number in Bay of Plenty has been consistently high – 4313 in 2014 and 4718 last year.
'These are shocking figures” says Annette King. 'And it underlines how far the budget cuts have hurt health.”
She says 'specialist refusals” means people who should be productive members of the community are on the scrapheap. 'They are being denied care because our hospitals are not being funded to meet the demand.”
Labour claims 12 of the country's 20 DHBs are getting less money out of the budget once they have made the adjustment for inflation and population growth.
Annette says the Minister has to fund health properly because thousands of New Zealanders are being ignored when it comes to essential elective surgery.
10 comments
Mrs King is Lying
Posted on 26-07-2016 19:20 | By Ron
In Michael Cullen's last budget Health received $10.850 billion (http://www.treasury.govt.nz/budget/2008/estimates/est08sumtab.pdf). In this years budget Health received $15.2 billion (http://www.treasury.govt.nz/budget/2016/summarytables/estimates/b16-sumtab-estimates.pdf). This is $4.22 billion MORE than when Labour left Government.
Well done
Posted on 27-07-2016 08:31 | By Kenworthlogger
Good work Ron. I hate seeing pollys lie...
Hmmmm
Posted on 27-07-2016 09:16 | By How about this view!
Well what else should we expect?....... This sort of issue will happen with whichever party is holding the purse strings in parliament. We have political parties attacking one another over multiple issues and the result is money shuffling from one budget to the next to plug leaks. It's a wonder that those wanting to be in power haven't highlighted the levels of overseas borrowings, but maybe that is because they would need to increase it for their miracle cures for the nation.
What
Posted on 27-07-2016 10:20 | By overit
What do you expect while we are paying off billions of dollars in Treaty settlements.
Lies...
Posted on 27-07-2016 13:15 | By Politically Incorrect
The lies are the truth, statistically speaking. Typical politics, there has been no 'slash' of funding, the actual truth is that the funding has just not risen as much as inflation and population growth has required, so there is actually less money per person, even though the budget has risen so much. There's only one thing to remember here, it doesn't matter who promises what, it's OUR money these people are promising to spend.
Where has all the money gone Ron?
Posted on 27-07-2016 13:34 | By maildrop
Your thinking is simplistic to say the least Ron. We have to consider population growth, an ageing population, inflation and GDP. The NZ economy is growing and has been for some years now. The fact is that health spending as a % of GDP has fallen under this government. In simplistic terms for you, GDP being all the cash generated by economic activity, some of which is collected by the government in taxes. The amount collected can be adjusted by taxation policy. So as a % of "our" overall wealth, less is being given to the health sector. This is at the same time that the population is increasing and is ageing. So where has all the money that this country created gone Ron? Into the pockets of the very wealthy.
@ overit
Posted on 27-07-2016 15:38 | By Captain Sensible
You are correct but you forgot to mention the word "fraudulent".
Where Maildrop?
Posted on 27-07-2016 15:50 | By Ron
The money was not there to begin with so the amazing thing is that this Government has managed to increase the health budget by $4.2 billion (i.e. 38%) while paying off redevelopment of Christchurch and dealing with the GFC. It appears the Labour P{arty is arguing it should have kept spending like a drunken sailor.
Labour's sums stink....
Posted on 27-07-2016 16:43 | By 1 4 GK
You can't argue against the facts that Health spending has gone up over $4bn (yes; that's BILLION).If Labour says the spend has gone down $1.7bn who would you want managing our money - certainly not Labour then!
Ron
Posted on 28-07-2016 07:52 | By maildrop
You clearly do not understand GDP and it's implications on government revenue.
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