Health League Tables

The Herald reports:

League tables showing which primary health organisations (PHOs) are doing best – and worst – at meeting community health needs have been released by the Ministry of Health for the first time.

The tables, to June 2009, ranked how well general practices are doing at immunising 2-year-olds, detecting and following up diabetes patients, assessing the risk of heart disease, breast and cervical cancer screening, flu vaccinations and other key health indicators.

Information ranking the top and bottom five PHOs for meeting targets across the health indicators were released to Radio New Zealand under the Official Information Act.

One league table showed PHOs in the Hutt Valley, Wairarapa, Wellington and Hawke’s Bay at the top for immunisation, exceeding the target of an 85 per cent immunisation rate with rates of up to 93 per cent.

The bottom of the table were PHOs in Counties-Manukau, Northland, Bay of Plenty and Waikato with rates as low as 32 per cent.

This got me thinking that if the health sector unions had the same ethics as the education unions, they would be out there encouraging doctors and nurses to refuse to immunise children, unless the Government promised not to collate the data on immunisation rates.