Health itches
August 30th, 2011 at 3:00 pm by David FarrarGrant Robertson blogs at Red Alert:
The conventional wisdom is that Tony Ryall is making a good fist of the Health portfolio. Now that I am up close in the area I can say that he keeps a tight rein on matters health, and is managing the portfolio effectively.
I’m trying to recall the last time an Opposition Spokesperson said the Minister is managing the portfolio effectively. Good on Grant though for acknowledging the reality. Of course he has a criticism:
But there is a big difference between managing the politics of health and actually doing what is right for the long term health outcomes of New Zealanders.
So what does Grant mean by this:
The best evidence of that is the release today of the Child Health Monitor Report. It shows, among other things, that in the last two years there have been an additional 5 000 avoidable hospital admissions for things like respiratory illness and skin infections. The authors of the report note that the cost of going to the doctor, especially after hours is a factor in whether children are getting the healthcare they need, along with a range factors associated with child poverty.
I am not saying all of this is down to the Health policy of the current government. But the focus on the narrow range of health targets set by the Minister means that child health is not the priority it should be. The Minister has narrowed the health targets in such a way as to scratch the itches of waiting lists and time spent in ED, but it is at the expense of early intervention and public health programmes.
So what are these itches that Grant refers to? An itch suggests something that isn’t that important, but is noticeable. Well the six targets are:
- Shorter Stays in Emergency Departments
- Improved Access to Elective Surgery
- Shorter Waits for Cancer Treatment Radiotherapy
- Increased Immunisation
- Better Help for Smokers to Quit
- Better Diabetes and Cardiovascular Services
Now it might just be me, but I doubt many people would regard shorter waiting times for cancer treatment as just scratching an itch, or having more people get elective surgey or having shorter waits in ED Departments.
Related posts:
- Herald backs health targets
- Health Targets
- Labour candidate on elective surgery
- The Green’s Health Priorities
August 30th, 2011 at 3:16 pm
So basically, grant would like to throw heaps of taxpayers money on aspects of health where it has little benefit to those supposedly benefiting, but colateral benefits to state employees and their unions.
It seemed that Labour during its 9 years in power was quite incapable of scratching these 6 itches (where it was comparatively to get results given Labour’s gross mismagement) let alone the far more difficult matter of supporting the health, education and welfare of children where parents and other relatives just do not want to take responsibility.
The previous labour government was rather incompetent. The present lineup even more so – they could not even organise a piss-up in a brewery.
Vote:August 30th, 2011 at 3:19 pm
A large percentage of visits to emergency medicine departments are by people who are trying to avoid paying for a GP visit. They don’t need emergency treatment, but they know they’re unlikely to get turned away.
Emergency doctors often make quick assessments to identify these patients and then arrange for them to undergo a “therapeutic wait”. This usually involves making patients wait several hours before they’re seen again. The idea is that the patients will see sense and leave the ED.
It pays to remember this when people are bitching in the media about the waiting times in hospital emergency departments. Therapeutic waits are a management tool – they’re not a sign of under-resourcing in the ED.
Vote:August 30th, 2011 at 3:20 pm
Tony Ryall has done a fantastic job in a normally very difficult and controversial portfolio. Grant is just whining for the sake of it.
Vote:August 30th, 2011 at 3:24 pm
It has never ceased to amuse me how the Socialists onlt KPI is how much money is thrown at a problem. Like if we double the spend we will halve the problem.
Shows they are one deminsional. Whilst not yet there Ryall has at least started to address the criminla waste that has been the Health system in NZ for the last 3 plus decades.
All we have seen is more money chucked at it with no clearly defined amd measureable KPIs. When you asked them in the past they looked at you as if you were a crazy.
WHat Have a measureable that could be managed. No way what have use held to account. Never. Cant/wont do it.
So good on Tony for making a small start.
One day we may actually get to see the results of the Billions thrown at Health each tear and rising. But IM not holding my breath
Vote:August 30th, 2011 at 3:43 pm
Questions
(1) why do we train medical people Doctors and Nurses only too loose them overseas?
(2) Why are the majority of Medical School undergraduates (doctors in training) female when many of them will spend less time as practicing as doctors than it took to train them as they leave to raise families?
Vote:August 30th, 2011 at 3:45 pm
@ gump 3 19, On the money but not a widely known solution.
Vote:August 30th, 2011 at 4:16 pm
Nowhere in the much publicized Child Health Monitor report is there any reference to parental responsibility or parental accountability. The only solutions proposed are to throw more money at the problem; researchers blithely ignore the reality that thousands of kids have been raised successfully (without health or education problems) in poorer households.
Vote:August 30th, 2011 at 4:17 pm
So Grant Robertson was commenting on the Child Health Monitor Report, which was bad news. But, according to this post, there is some good news on some other health priorities, so all is fine?
Vote:August 30th, 2011 at 4:23 pm
“Nowhere in the much publicized Child Health Monitor report is there any reference to parental responsibility or parental accountability”.
We don’t want parents being responsible for their children trout. Who knows what kind of politically incorrect ideas they might teach them. Only right thinking Labour/Green Unionists are qualified to have responsibility for children.
Vote:August 30th, 2011 at 4:36 pm
trout
I didn’t think the report was one that proposed specific solutions. Isn’t it a set of indicators of chuild wellbeing?
Vote:August 30th, 2011 at 5:55 pm
I think this is a great example of specific, quantifiable goals versus a waffly broad, unquantifiable term that Labour loves so much in health and education, i.e. ‘child health’ versus increased immunisation rates for children. It’s the same thing around national standards. These standards are light years ahead of the standard form tests in the US and England. I never will understand opposition to a set of minimum stuff a kid should ‘know’ at their age. You can be a hungry, abused, poor kid and all the rest of it and still know stuff, and want to know stuff, because I know a lot of kids who are just like that, hell my cousins are like that. Saying the kids are screwed, why bother, is what this attitude of teacher helplessness seems to me to communicate. All this kids exploring knowledge waffle is bullshit. You need a core of actual knowledge first, then you can expand on that.
Vote:August 30th, 2011 at 5:59 pm
When I lived in Porirua the doctor had a budget subscription plan. You paid a small amount each week or fortnight (I was $10 a fortnight for a non-beneficiary single, it was a bit less if you were on a benefit) and you then could have your medical appointments for free. There was a cap on how many appointments you could get, but it didn’t get enforced if you really were sick. After hours was chargeable.
The scheme worked well for the doctors as well – they didn’t have to chase up unpaid fees, they got a steady income, they didn’t have to deal with situations that escalated and ate up resources.
Vote:August 30th, 2011 at 6:59 pm
Tony Ryall is doing great. But he can’t be everywhere. Perhaps Grant could assist Tony by having a go at some of those who would milk the system for as much as they can get. I suggest the GPs. Who make quite good incomes for not a lot of work. And are abandoning such things as after hours care. Even in big centres they are wriggling out of co-operating to provide the small amount needed. And have worked to subvert any free visits for the young – which would have been a remedy for out poverty/illness equation.
Vote:Go on Grant. Give Tony a hand.
August 30th, 2011 at 8:02 pm
# Andrei (1,006) Says:
….
(2) Why are the majority of Medical School undergraduates (doctors in training) female when many of them will spend less time as practicing as doctors than it took to train them as they leave to raise families?
…….
Well, Andrei, I suppose we can only hope that in our enlightened future, the responsibility for raising families will be shared equally between men and women.
Vote:August 30th, 2011 at 11:02 pm
Once again Labour want the gummint to do something about “long term health outcomes for NZers”.
Actually NZers should be doing that for themselves first and foremost.
When I look around and see the huge numbers of fat bastards waddling around our streets I am appalled at the harm that sugar abuse and a lack of exercise and personal responsibility is doing.
And the commentariat keep saying “look at those fat Yanks.” I say look in the mirror.
Vote:August 31st, 2011 at 12:02 am
DP, the reason I think he regards them as scratching an itch, is that they are superficial health priorities which have a disproportionately large public and political profile in comparison with their relative priority to other issues- how many would view immunisation rates as more important than cancer care?- I doubt from the outset many would view immunisations to be as important as cancer care, however immunisations easily prevent more deaths a year than the country’s combined cancer services.
Both cancer care and elective surgery are examples where in an effort to make the issues more understandable, the issues are often oversimplified- the vast changes in the type of care, the range of patients and problems, is not counted in the attempt to use these markers to gauge performance of the health system.
Vote:August 31st, 2011 at 10:03 am
MM I would have thought that a prime indicator of child wellbeing was parental responsibility. You and your ilk seem determined to excuse individuals from personal liability and yet at the same time blame society for the consequenses of individual neglect. I say again that there are thousands of examples of successful child rearing in a less affluent home environment so perhaps the problem is not lack of money; but I guess that proposition does not fit the socialist agenda.
Vote: