8. Hon TONY RYALL (National—Bay of Plenty) Link to this
to the Minister of Health
Is he satisfied with the length of time people wait for treatment at hospital emergency departments; if not, why not?
Hon PETE HODGSON (Minister of Health) Link to this
No, I am not. The service for triage 1 patients, those who must be seen immediately, is reliably excellent. However, the service for triage 2 and 3 patients is below the best practice targets that have been set, even though that service provided in New Zealand hospitals is amongst the best in the Western World.
Why is no major hospital in New Zealand meeting the Government’s own benchmarks for safe and timely treatment for emergency department patients despite the extra $4 billion a year that this Government is putting into the health system?
Let me make several points in response to the member. The first is the one I have already made, which is that New Zealand’s emergency departments are, by international standards, amongst the best in the world. That is the first thing. The second point is that under the National Government there was no measurement at all—not any measurement at all.
Hon Bill EnglishIt is true—there was no measurement of emergency responses under a National Government, because it would rather not know. The third thing is that the standards have been set such that we could achieve them by lowering the standards, but we choose not to. The fourth point is that in the standards for triage 2 and 3—the triage 1 standard is already being met—we are moving closer to the target as each month goes by. In fact, I gave the member the proof of the improvement in triage 2 and 3, and he has chosen not to use it. He has chosen instead to have a go at those who work in emergency services.
Lesley SoperHow does the Minister come to the view that the response times in emergency departments are amongst the best in the world, and does he have any evidence to support his claim?
Yes, I do. I have the evidence. The evidence comes from the Commonwealth Fund, a respected American organisation, which compares hospital emergency response times in Australia, Canada, the UK, the US, and New Zealand. New Zealand came first.
Barbara StewartIs it possible that more people are turning up at hospital emergency departments because of a shortage of accessible after-hours care, and what is the Government doing to improve the provision of after-hours care?
Yes, it is possible. There are many reasons for increased numbers at emergency departments, one of which, paradoxically, is the improvement in service. After-hours arrangements vary from district health board to district health board, and include general practitioner services being co-located alongside emergency departments in some cases. It seems to work quite well for some district health boards.
What sort of poor quality service is the Government providing when one-third of people with imminent threat to life or limb are turning up at emergency departments, and waiting and waiting in pain, going way beyond the Government’s own benchmarks for when these people should be treated, and does the Government not realise that this is actually a basic service of the public health system and that despite $4 billion a year extra, this Government cannot provide patient safety?
If someone faces an imminent threat to life, he or she is seen immediately. In this county, those people are seen when they need to be seen under those circumstances. They do so reliably. [ Interruption] It is not a laughing matter. In other countries, ambulances are rerouted to other hospitals—they just say: “We’re full.” That does not happen in this country, and that is why, when measured against four other countries that we like to compare ourselves with—and here they are again: Australia, Canada, the UK, and the US—this country comes tops. I want to know why that member cannot say something nice about the people who work in our emergency departments.
Dr Jonathan Coleman Link to this
What steps is the Minister taking to satisfy himself that the North Shore Hospital accident and emergency department is going to be able to cope with an expected increase in patient numbers over winter; and why would the public feel confident that this Minister can fix the mess in our hospitals?
I do go to North Shore Hospital; I have been there many times. I can say to the member that because this Government does not have unaffordable tax cuts on its mind, the funding for the Waitemata District Health Board will increase by—wait for it—8 percent, on Sunday. That is the sort of increase we would never get from a Tory Government, because it wants to ensure money goes on tax cuts.
Dr Jonathan Coleman Link to this
When the Minister next goes to North Shore Hospital, would he like to speak to the lady in her 60s who went to the accident and emergency department there with pneumonia, was treated on a trolley in a corridor, was sent home too early, and then came back for another 30 hours on the trolley in the corridor; is it not plain that for all the blarney that this Minister speaks, and all the money he spends, things are actually getting a lot worse in accident and emergency departments?
Not only are things getting better, they are getting measurably better. The reason we cannot compare how things were this decade, with a decade ago, is that that member’s party declined to measure this stuff in the first place. It was not interested in transparency, it was not interested in telling the truth, and it was not interested in measuring improvement. We now can measure improvement, and although we have still not achieved targets for triage 2 patients, and we have still not achieved targets for triage 3 patients, we have achieved them for those who need them most, and we are the best of five countries measured.
Would the Minister, in all seriousness, meet the family of the late Dean Carroll—a young man who turned up at the emergency department at Christchurch Hospital in absolute pain and agony, only to be turned away to die 12 hours later—to tell them that the public health service emergency departments are getting better every day; and in that tragic case why did the Prime Minister not attend his funeral?
I happen to know a little about that case. I am sorry that the member has decided to shroud-wave; I am very sorry that that has happened. Here are a couple of things—
Madam SPEAKERIt is becoming increasingly difficult to hear. Unless the comments are kept down, I will be asking for the answers to be heard in silence.
This dead man has a family, so let us be mindful of that. It is a matter of fact that this question was about waiting times and there were no difficulties—as I understand it—with waiting times, in that case. The situation in that case was a case of missed diagnosis. It was a diagnosis that was missed, first of all, in a primary health care setting by a general practitioner, then missed in a secondary care setting. It is regrettable that it happened, and I offer my condolences to the family, but I say that misdiagnoses in medicine do happen, and there is no such thing as a perfect record in diagnosis in medicine and it is not fair to ask that of the medical profession.