Steve Chadwick: Funding for healthcare suffers blow in Budget

It has been interesting to watch the community response to the Budget three weeks ago. This health budget does not heal, it hurts! There were a few "nice to haves", such as rheumatic fever funding support, extra services for Alzheimer's disease sufferers, and more visits for first-time mothers and support for kids in care. They are all needed.
But the minister did not fool those in the health sector for very long with his so-called increase in funding.
I was amazed to see most district health board chairs state it was an okay health budget, given that closer analysis reveals a $156 million hole in this year's funding to the health sector that will be required just to stand still.
The Government's own figures showed that $576 million new spending was required was required for Vote Health to just keep up with rising costs, population growth, ageing and the demand in growth for new treatments.
The minister announced $585 million funding and then went on to say that $165 million of that will come from "savings", which means cuts, so there is only $420 million of extra money for Vote Health
It seems certain that the financial pressure on DHBs must lead to some combination of deterioration, reduction of services, new charges or increased deficits. The secret was to hope these changes will not become evident until after this election.
Mental health services will not be bullet proof as this minister changes his priorities to avoid the most vulnerable chronically mentally ill as he focuses on hospital care. What has happened to the commitment to increase mental health services?
Is this why in Rotorua we now see a new national mental health provider come to town with no cultural knowledge of our people or place and three long-term community mental health services lose their contracts from October? What confidence does that give to the most vulnerable clients who struggle to stay well?
I am seeking an answer from the board on this decision which may be feasible but the change signalled has caused considerable unrest that has been relayed to me by many who care in our community.
It is hard to sit back and see a focus of keeping people well in their own homes slowly being reduced. We have also seen cuts to public health services with some key staff lost along the way, with a loss of services that once focused on keeping people well and improving good health. It will have a long-term impact on hospital admissions long after this Government is voted out of office. It's easy to focus on more surgery and faster hospital treatment and ignore primary health which only gets 1.3 per cent of the total budget.
Thank goodness we see the new Rotorua hospital near completion as that was a Labour-funded initiative announced by the then prime minister, Helen Clark, just before the last election after three years of hard work by the DHB.
Where are the cries of a failed return to the past over the privatisation of ACC? When will the public see that they are going to pay more for less out of ACC? The only way that private insurers will make money from taking on ACC's role will be by reducing entitlements or increasing costs. Either way Kiwis will lose. National calls the plan "competition" but it is privatisation, plain and simple. National has talked up a crisis in ACC in a bid to undermine public confidence in the scheme which is a world leader. Labour will reverse this decision. We value the work of ACC and remember well the mess we had to clean up when we got into government in 1999. I saw steady stream of ACC clients who were refused rehabilitation or even declined treatment under the failed privatisation approach.
I accompanied our health spokesperson, Grant Robertson, on a Rotorua visit and we heard first-hand about the impacts on the health of our community.
I don't want to go back to those failed policies of the past and that's why I will fight to stop this madness in the next election.