Labour finds $13m for children's health checks

Labour has promised more money for free health checks for pre-school children - including testing for hearing problems in newborn babies.

Prime Minister Helen Clark and Health Minister Annette King announced $13 million more a year by 2008 for the checks while visiting a West Auckland medical centre yesterday.

Of that, $4 million a year is being promised for free screening of newborns for hearing problems, $5 million for extra "Well Child" checks and $4 million for "School Ready" checks.

School Ready is a new check which is free and would be for all children before they start school. The existing Well Child check entitlement per child is being boosted from 6.5 to eight free visits.

Helen Clark said the aim of the School Ready check was to ensure children were checked for immunisations, vision and hearing before starting school.

District health boards will organise delivery of the programmes.

On the free hearing check for newborn babies, Helen Clark said that up to three in 1000 children could have permanent congenital hearing loss.

Despite international recommendations on detecting deafness before three months of age and treating it before six months, New Zealand's average age of detection is about 3 1/2 years. Helen Clark said that was much too late to mitigate the effects of congenital hearing loss.

Earlier, the Prime Minister lunched with US Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns, who said there were not any current plans for a free-trade agreement between the two countries but "we are open to the possibility".

His visit is the first by a member of the Bush Administration since 1999.

An eye-opener from the PM

Was Helen Clark truly born to be a Labour prime minister?

One would have to wonder after revealing she has had a lazy eye all her life - and it's her right eye. So that means her left eye is stronger, which should not come as a surprise to anyone.

She revealed the problem while announcing $13 million a year by 2008 for medical checks for pre-school children, including a "School Ready" check that will include vision and hearing tests.

"I feel particularly strongly about the vision testing because all my life I've had the effects of a lazy eye which was never picked up," she said. "If it had been picked up when I was a small child, and I'd had a patch put on the other one to make the one which wasn't so good work, I'd have had better eyesight all my life."