Debate on Crown Entities, Public Organisations, and State Enterprises — Waikato District Health Board

It is with great pleasure that we talk about the Waikato District Health Board, and the way in which that board has achieved so much under this National Government through the leadership of the Hon Tony Ryall, and of Dr Coleman, who has also been very active in the health field, and who has made a huge difference in promoting health decisions with effective results for our region. When we look at some of the results that have come out of the Waikato region, and especially the Waikato District Health Board, the biggest thing that anyone who goes to the city will see is the massive change on the skyline as cranes operate on that health site. There has been an over $400 million expansion and renovation programme for the district health board in Hamilton. It is a huge programme; we are seeing a new emergency department being created, which has just gone online, and a new maternity department. A lot of work has been done on the wards and also in the theatres of that great institution.

The district health board has led, in the way it has delivered services to the community, and we see that in the way that probably an extra 50 doctors have been added to the health service, and 250 extra nurses. That is something that has been very, very much sought after across the country, and especially in the Waikato. We are delivering on access to elective surgery, with an extra 3,674 people having elective surgery. An extra 35 patients per week are getting surgery done, and those are tremendous numbers. It makes a real difference to those people’s lives, and it makes a difference to the effectiveness of their ability to contribute to our economy.

There is better immunisation, with an extra 868 two-year-olds being fully immunised in Auckland under National during 2009, which represented part of that total of 5,053 two-year-olds being immunised around the country—a record of 86 percent, which is something previous Governments would have been very jealous of.

There are shorter stays in emergency departments. I know that the Waikato District Health Board has been very careful to make the best use of its resources in trying to get the best results it can from its emergency department. That is a challenge in the Waikato because we have a lot of traffic injuries in that area, as we have a lot of roads that connect to the big centres of Auckland and Tauranga. So we deal with a lot of road trauma, and there is a special trauma department at the Waikato District Health Board facility, which makes a very effective contribution to recovery for people who are in those kinds of accidents, or in the types of industrial accidents we see in that region.

There are shorter waiting lists for cancer treatments, which is another thing the Minister of Health has been very careful to see some results from, in that regard. We have seen that across the country, and it is good to see that happening in New Zealand with that horrible disease of cancer. Nobody really knows what can be done, but we can do the best we can with our treatments and processes, to enable the best for our patients in those areas.

There have been a number of very significant additions to the health sector in the last 3 years. Elective surgery numbers continue to rise, and the Minister has taken particular interest in seeing those numbers rise, and in patients having the ability to get that surgery. The Waikato District Health Board has performed well, over the time, and it has done very well in its construction programme of renovating buildings for the sector, especially for the Waikato. If we look at some of the third-quarter results for 2010-11, and at the Waikato District Health Board, for example, in regard to diabetes and cardiovascular services, we see that our board ranks 8th out of the district health boards. That is a good ranking, but it is something the district health board will want to improve on, as well. It also ranks 16th in programmes giving better help for smokers to quit. In the increased immunisation figures, the Waikato District Health Board ranks No. 9.

Report noted.

Waitematā District Health Board

Waitematā District Health Board. I can remember the years from 2005 to 2008, when I would meet regularly with my colleague the Hon Dr Wayne Mapp, and we would compare notes on the long queues of constituents who had beaten a track to our respective electorate office doors with tales of woe about what was going on at North Shore Hospital.