The sick health sector

In the 1999/2000 years $6.8 billion was spent on Vote Health. In 2008/2009 Vote Health was forecast to be $12.6 billion. Now some of this is to over inflation and population growth but it is still a huge amount of extra funding. And what has been the result?

The Press editorial notes:

Heart disease is a leading cause of death in New Zealand and there have been longstanding concerns about the level of cardiac surgery services, writes The Press in an editorial. Yesterday’s report into cardiac surgery confirmed that these concerns were justified. The report found that this nation lagged behind comparable nations in heart surgery rates, with Australia’s level of service being 85 per cent higher and that within New Zealand there were significant regional variations.

Australia’s level of service is 85% higher.

And not only is this an election year when the Government must defend its health record, but another critical report, issued by the Ministry of Health yesterday, said that eight patients who died in 2006 and 2007 while awaiting heart surgery at Wellington Hospital had avoidable delays in their treatment.

Eight actual avoidable deaths, as oppossed to Helen’s invented 60 deaths in Iraq.

It is worth noting that a total of 16 people died while waiting for cardiac surgery during those two years, so that figure of eight being preventable represents half of them.