6. Hon TONY RYALL (National—Bay of Plenty) Link to this
to the Minister of Health
Does he stand by his answer in the House yesterday that in claiming “over 2,300 extra medical personnel” since 2001, “the statistics are on the same basis throughout,”?
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Minister of Health) Link to this
I have addressed this matter in a clarifying statement to the House at the earliest opportunity. My answer yesterday to the House was that, as I understood it then, the data provided was consistent, and in that regard it remains a true statement. It also remains a true statement that I am advised the proportion of management and administration staff in the district health board system has declined since 2001. I was not aware yesterday of an adjustment to the fulltime-equivalent definition in 2006-07. However, I am advised that this definitional change applied to both the clinical and the non-clinical workforce categories.
Is the Minister aware that comparable information is collected every 6 months by me under the Official Information Act, and that this shows that there have been only 1,200 new medical staff in the past 7 years, not the slippery 2,300 that he claimed yesterday, meaning that under Labour almost twice as many new health bureaucrats have been employed for every new doctor?
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE Link to this
I will be spending some further time with these data sets and my advice is that the aggregate proportion of non-clinical staff has declined since 2001. I note that the member picks out medical staff, but ignores nursing staff and other clinical staff. My advice remains that the combined effect of this is that non-clinical staff have grown by less as a proportion than clinical staff to date.
LESLEY SOPER (Labour) Link to this
Has the Minister seen any reports that make claims regarding the health sector that have caused him concern?
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE Link to this
Yes. I am aware that on Tuesday Mr Ryall informed the House that there had been a 182 percent increase in staff at the Ministry of Health, and that Ms Goodhew recently sent out a press release quoting an increase in nursing vacancies of 275 percent at the Waitemata District Health Board, despite being told by the district health board that this was not an increase in vacancies but that they were newly created positions because the hospital was increasing capacity. Jo Goodhew also falsely claimed in this House that the Public Health Bill would make health risk management plans compulsory for hairdressers. None of these statements is even remotely correct, and I wonder whether the opportunity will be taken by the Opposition to apologise for any inaccuracies.
Why has the Minister told the House twice that he was unaware of the changes being made to the way the Government was counting this information, when he gave an answer in a written question from me in February this year stating that there was a change to the accrual method for counting fulltime equivalents to provide better definition and enable consistency of fulltime-equivalent counting across the sector—why, when he has given that answer, where he confirmed that he knew about it and gave an explanation for the change, is he now coming down to the House and saying that he was completely unaware of the change?
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE Link to this
The member may remember every last caveat on the answer to every written parliamentary question that he has ever received—good luck to him. My statement remains true. I have given my assurance to the House that as of yesterday I believed that the numbers I gave to the House were true, and that assurance has been received by the House.
Is the Minister aware that the new basis for counting the number of doctors in our hospitals, which the Minister explained in February 2008, swells the data by 1,000 phantom doctors, and is not this designed to cover up the workforce crisis in the New Zealand public health system?
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE Link to this
I have inflated nothing. What I am wondering is whether Mr Ryall would like to comment on why he told this Parliament that the Ministry of Health had increased its staffing by 182 percent—a claim that he knows is not correct.
If the Government has changed the way it counts medical staff to make the numbers look better, what other slippery changes has it made to the way it presents other health information data, like elective surgery results?
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE Link to this
I can confirm to the House that the Leader of the Opposition has not been helping me to draft answers to Parliament.
Madam SPEAKERNo, but what I do consider is that if questions are asked that contain comments that are likely to get responses, unfortunately we get the answers that the questions imply. I ask all members to play it straight between now and the end of question time, then we will get through quickly—both questions and answers. Just ask the question directly, and give the answer directly.
What sorts of priorities does this Government have when it is prepared to swell the health bureaucracy by millions and millions of dollars, but it cannot find the money to provide 12 months of Herceptin treatment for women dying from breast cancer?
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE Link to this
I invite the member to rise to his feet on a further supplementary question and explain to the House exactly what the National Party is proposing. Having set up a world-leading, evidence-based, lobby-proof system that saves the New Zealand taxpayer a billion dollars a year, is he advocating ad hoc decisions that reach over that process? If he is prepared to do that for one drug, how will he decide what drug to fund next time, and next time, and next time, or will it just depend on which drug companies are mates with John Key?