KEY POINTS:
Two major hospital upgrades are millions of dollars over budget, but so far district health boards are carrying the cost, MPs have been told.
Crown Health Financing Agency chief executive Graeme Bell told a parliamentary select committee yesterday that projected spending on the Waikato Hospital upgrade had gone from $215 million to $278 million.
The budget for the Wellington Hospital upgrade had blown out from $303 million to $346 million, he said.
However, neither of the DHBs behind the projects had yet asked for more money from the agency, which acts as the health system's banker.
High inflation in the building sector was a factor, Mr Bell said.
Officials from the agency and the Health Ministry and Auditor-General's Office were briefing MPs on aspects of health funding.
The Auditor-General's Office health sector manager, Colleen Pilgrim, said some of the accounting for funding in the sector was not very transparent.
A lot of large funding initiatives were covered by a single entry on the balance sheet and it was not always clear what services were being delivered for the money.
Health Ministry DHB funding and performance deputy director-general Anthony Hill said that since 2002, when the Government injected a massive funding boost, more hospitals were delivering better health care and delivering it within budget.
He said the time people spent in hospital compared well with other countries and health care was readily available.
"When you get acutely ill, you get treated," Mr Hill said.
National Party health spokesman Tony Ryall questioned him about whether health care was consistent across the country.
"They suggest to many people you have twice the chance of getting a hip replacement in Dunedin than you do in Auckland."
Green Party health spokeswoman Sue Kedgley called for accounting not only of the operating budgets and costs, but of how many people got infections and other "adverse effects" when in hospital.
She also asked how the country's health boards planned to become carbon neutral.
Mr Hill had no immediate answers to her questions, but said he would investigate.
- NZPA
