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New Zealand First has branded cancer treatment services as a national disgrace.
Health spokeswoman Barbara Stewart said yesterday cancer was the leading cause of death in New Zealand and latest statistics showed a 17.2 per cent increase from 1995 to 2003.
"There is no reason to suppose that the rate of increase has not continued to rise," she said.
Ms Stewart recalled a comment in August by the chief executive of the Cancer Society, Dalton Kelly, who said the Ministry of Health's Cancer Control Council was doing a good monitoring job, but asked: "What is the point of detecting cancer if we do not have the people, equipment and medicines to treat it?"
Ms Stewart said as long as funding control was spread among the 21 district health boards, nothing would change.
Wellington Hospital has reached agreement with cancer services in Canterbury for treatment of child patients. Wellington's child cancer unit has been in crisis since July when one of two paediatric oncologists resigned, and there is an acute shortage of nurses trained to administer chemotherapy.
Ms Stewart said New Zealanders were denied the benefits of the latest scanning technology because district health board "bean counters" had been given the final say.
- NZPA
