Hawke's Bay joined in a nationwide movement about things that are moving too slowly, with the arrival of the trade union backed YesWeCare health underfunding roadshow on Thursday.
Starting in Bluff on March 4, crossing Cook Strait last weekend and ending in Cape Reinga on March 29, it takes in 38 stops in 26 days and includes 200 life-sized cut-outs each representing 100 workers, such as doctors, ambulance staff and others New Zealand health care is said to be missing because of cost-cutting or Government failure to keep with the needs of public wellbeing.
They were put-in place outside the Hawke's Bay Hospital accident and emergency department entrance in Canning Rd, Hastings, where among the real, live people was Napier woman Eve Remm, who had waited almost four years for the completion of breast cancer surgeries she says would have been over in a few months had health services been sufficiently funded.
She said it started on December 3, 2012, when her doctor advised she had a lump which needed urgent attention.
She said the 3-4 weeks she was told it would be before before the biopsy stretched into seven weeks, the 62 days which guidelines suggested as a maximum wait for surgery stretched to 105 days, and the few months expected before the second surgery she requested stretched to more than three years before it was performed last September.
Following the first surgery there was infection which required further hospitalisation, which could have been avoided had better follow-up care been available, she said.
She stressed she was not "getting-at" health workers and added: "I am incredibly grateful for the wonderful care, they do an amazing job."
Campaign organiser Simon Oosterman said that while some of the service takes a long time, it's good care when it happens.
"Every time I would go back it would be put off," she said. "They finally told me there's just not enough funding."
"It was very stressful, waiting and not knowing what was happening. You're in a vulnerable position, and you don't want to be complaining about those who are helping you," she said.
Ambulance officer and Ambulance Professionals First union delegate Paul Goodwin said funding had not kept pace with the needs of of the service, which needs double-manning for public and crew safety but does not have the resources.
Hawke's Bay District Health Board chief executive Dr Kevin Snee said yesterday the board has worked "very hard" to turn its financial situation around, so it has been able to invest in new services for the community and better facilities to house them in. "For the past six years the district health board has delivered a financial surplus and will again at the end of this financial year," he said. "All the money saved goes into developing new services, buying new equipment, improving infrastructure through new technologies and building state-of-the-art facilities."
He said examples of some new services and facilities are "zero-fee" GP consultations for under 18s being introduced later this year to general practices that sign up, free bus service Hawke's Bay Hospital or Napier Health appointments, two new CT scanners, the new mental health inpatient unit and more community services, new renal facilities, rebuilding of Wairoa health facilities, new primary birthing centre Waioha and a new seventh theatre.
"The community will also be able to watch as the new gastroenterology unit, renal unit and a much improved oncology unit are built during the coming year," he said."
According to recent Ministry of Health figures, elective surgeries in the DHB area are up 31 per cent, orthopaedic elective surgeries are up 4 per cent, cataract surgeries are up 88 per cent and first specialist assessments are up 36 per cent.
Health funding campaign hits town
STANDING UP: Breast cancer survivor Eve Lemm and Ambulance Professionals First union delegate Paul Goodwin as the YesWeCare health underfunding campaign hits HJawke's Bay. PHOTO/WARREN BUCKLAND
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