The funding for upgrading Whangārei Hospital is in place, so why the delay, National list MP Dr Shane Reti asks.
The funding for upgrading Whangārei Hospital is in place, so why the delay, National list MP Dr Shane Reti asks.
A recent article from the Labour MP for Whangārei raised several questions around health funding and health infrastructure funding in Northland.
These are good questions. Every government increases vote health every year simply because of the inexorable health inflation, an increasing population and an ageing population benefiting from new butexpensive technologies.
During the global financial crisis years, health funding continued to increase each year, although understandably with less increase than in other years.
Coming out of the GFC, there were decisions on whether to build new hospitals or reduce waiting lists.
This need not be an either/or decision because both can occur to different degrees. The National government in the last three-year term 2014-2017 decided to still fund health infrastructure but to significantly prioritise reducing waiting lists for hips, knees, cataracts and other procedures.
Management of the waiting list for Northlanders to see a specialist within four months can be seen in the following table from when National handed over to Labour in 2017 to the present.
This graphic shows the escalation in specialist waiting times at Northland District Health Board over the past three years
This is the minister's own data for Northland DHB and shows an alarming escalation in waiting times even before coronavirus struck in early 2020.
The question of an upgrade for Whangārei Hospital is also interesting. Plans have been under way across several governments for many years. My recent critiquing of Andrew Little on this matter has revealed the money is actually already available for the hospital upgrade.
Reply 54281 (2021) has been answered to Dr Shane Reti 3 Dec 2021 Portfolio: Health (Hon Andrew Little) Question: Further to 52984(2021) has the $572m funding for Whangārei Hospital been appropriated? Reply: Funding is appropriated for health capital projects as a bulk amount. Budget 2021 appropriated $700 million. Funding of $572 million for the Whangārei Hospital redevelopment project has been reserved from within the appropriation.
The question then is that if the funding for the hospital upgrade is already available, and there is sewerage in the walls right now that will take two years to repair, then why are we not doing the upgrade immediately and at the same time stimulating the post-Covid local economy with jobs?
The longer this is delayed, the more it will risk looking like it is being held over for election-year purposes.
To address another issue raised in the article, my advocacy for health in Northland, including the hospital upgrade, is on record. Unfortunately so, too, is the local Labour MP and when two weeks ago I asked the Minister of Health in ministerial questions if the Labour MP for Whangārei had ever written to him on letterhead, even once, to advocate for the upgrade to Whangārei Hospital, sadly, his answer to this question was "no".
Progressing an upgrade to Whangārei Hospital will require a collaborative effort from all stakeholders. Let's give credit that the funding is in place with the present government, but then let's also start building the new hospital before it becomes another four-lanes broken promise.
