KEY POINTS:
The Government is pouring an extra $160 million into elective surgery in a pre-election push to bolster the public health sector.
The new money was revealed in a pre-Budget announcement yesterday by Health Minister David Cunliffe, in the company at the Starship hospital of 12-year-old Alex Beggs. The Kohimarama girl last year underwent spinal surgery, an area to be boosted by the funding.
Alex said the money would allow more operations like hers to be performed. "It's really good because they need to get them done."
However, National's health spokesman, Tony Ryall, said it was "guilt money" from Labour after 40,000 people were removed from hospital waiting lists over two years.
Sixteen of the country's 21 district health boards are compliant with the Government's policy of seeing the sickest patients first and offering surgery only to those who can be treated within six months. But problems exist, such as long waits for some heart surgery that are considered unacceptable by cardiologists.
Alex's father, airline pilot Graeme Beggs, although grateful his daughter was treated successfully for spinal curvature, said he was cynical at the timing of the funding increase in the months before the election. "It should have been years ago."
Mr Cunliffe denied the money was a tactic to buy votes at this year's election, pointing to the 2006 increase in electives funding which was separate from the electoral cycle.
"This is a determined effort to make sure the rate of electives growth is faster than the rate of population growth.
"We are now well ahead of population growth in electives performance. In 2006-2007 we had a 6.3 per cent increase [in patient discharges] and we are up to 207 discharges for 10,000 people, which is higher than 199 in 2001-2002 when we first got the data."
The new money is expected to increase the number of hospital inpatients receiving treatment for non-urgent conditions by around 5000 a year.
The number of first specialist assessments will rise by about 20,500 a year and the number of outpatient procedures by 3500, under a new "ambulatory electives initiative" (although only half of this increase has assured funding beyond June 2010).
This initiative will enable more patients to be seen in hospitals and permit some GPs to do more work usually done by specialists, like treating certain skin conditions and ordering more tests like CT scans.
The College of GPs president, Dr Jonathan Fox, said this initiative should cut delays for patients.
"We've been working towards this for a long time, advocating that specialist GPs in primary care get access to high-tech diagnostics and other specialist assistance that will speed up eventual treatment."
District health boards spokesman David Meates said the initiative should improve the flow of patients between general practice and hospitals.
NEW MONEY
* $160 million from the Government over four years for elective services.
* $30 million per year of this, ongoing, will buy surgery or other treatment for an extra 5000 patients.
* $5 million a year, ongoing, will go on first assessments by specialists, outpatient treatment and allowing some GPs to do some minor surgery and order more tests. A one-off $10 million will also go on this over two years.
* One-off funding of $8 million will go towards areas of high need, like cardiac and spinal surgery. $2 million will top up funding for cataract surgery.
