Waiting list deaths a scandal says MP

Nearly 300 Aucklanders died on hospital waiting lists in the 12 months to last September, show figures released by Act MP Heather Roy.

But Health Minister Annette King says it would be an "absolute distortion" to suggest they died as a result of waiting for surgery.

Mrs Roy said figures supplied by the Health Information Service showed 279 people died on waiting lists at Counties Manukau, Auckland and Waitemata district health boards in the year to September.

Close to 33,000 people were waiting for a specialist appointment and of those, 6520 had been waiting longer than six months.

A further 14,925 had seen a specialist and were waiting for surgery.

Mrs Roy, Act's health spokeswoman, said the figures were a "scandal". Health boards had been underfunded and had "their backs against the wall" when it came to meeting the needs of their populations.

Ms King said the raw waiting list data did not show the cause of death. A person could have been waiting for fertility treatment or a knee replacement and have been killed in a car accident.

"It would be drawing a long bow saying a person waiting for cataract surgery died of that."

She said there would always be a wait for surgery in a public system but "in the main" district health boards knew elective surgery was a priority.

Hospitals had performed 114,000 elective operations in the past year compared with 68,000 in 2001.

Waitemata District Health Board chief executive Dwayne Crombie said the average person on a waiting list was in their 70s and a proportion were likely to die from a range of chronic illnesses, such as heart disease, diabetes and respiratory problems.

"We keep doing more but it's a race against demand."

Between July and December last year 5665 people had surgery at Waitemata compared with 4782 for the same time in 2003.

The board had employed more physicians, particularly orthopaedic surgeons, to tackle waiting lists and the number of hip and knee operations was expected to double.

Dr Crombie said two to three years ago a person needing a hip replacement would have had to wait up to three years for the operation. In the next 12 months the wait was expected to be between six and nine months.

At Counties Manukau the volume of elective surgery had increased by 7 per cent in the year to last July, chief executive Stephen McKernan said. This year the number of hip and knee replacements would double to 500.

Auckland District Health Board clinical leader of planning and funding, Dr Allan Pelkowitz, said the board was concerned about the number of people waiting longer than six months for a specialist assessment but the figure was improving every month.

Of the 5710 people waiting for surgery, more than 80 per cent would receive it within four weeks.

Dr Pelkowitz said shortening waiting lists was not simply a matter of putting more money into operations.

The board had to have the staffing and capacity in the hospital and community for follow-up care.