KEY POINTS:
Health Minister David Cunliffe is expected to announce new money for elective surgery tomorrow.
He is scheduled to speak at the Starship children's hospital in Auckland tomorrow, four days ahead of the Budget, but his spokesman would yesterday give no details, other than that it will be "a major announcement".
A Herald source, however, said it would be "a significant announcement around electives".
Elective surgery will be an election issue later this year and is an unavoidable weak spot for any government; demand is always ahead of what ministers consider they can reasonably expect taxpayers to supply.
The volume of state-funded elective services increased by 6 per cent in 2006/07, to 112,507 patient discharges - after hovering at around 106,000 a year since 2000/01, despite population growth.
Yesterday, the Herald reported that the Counties Manukau District Health Board had increased its volume of elective surgery by 37 per cent in the last three years.
The national increase came after the Government announced in 2006 that it would invest $200 million over four years to provide elective surgery to an extra 10,000 patients a year.
But the money was tied to district health boards continuing to comply with the Government's policy of seeing the sickest first. Adherence to that policy led to more than 13,000 people on treatment waiting lists being sent back to the care of their GP or put on active review.
