KEY POINTS:
The number of outpatient assessments by public hospital surgeons and physicians is declining, which the National Party says is adding to people's difficulties in getting non-urgent hospital care.
But after fighting to defend his health system in Parliament yesterday, Health Minister Pete Hodgson later produced new figures showing a 6 per cent increase in the number of patients receiving state-paid elective surgery - following two years of declining numbers.
"Wrong again, Mr Ryall," his office crowed after Tony Ryall, National's health spokesman, had asserted that fewer people were getting elective operations.
But Mr Ryall's figures - which report a different aspect of publicly funded elective services - show first assessments and follow-ups declined 1.9 per cent in five years.
The biggest national decline revealed in the statistics - Government answers to National's questions - was a 5 per cent reduction in first visits to surgeons. These are people referred to hospital see if they qualify for elective surgery.
Mr Ryall said the reduction in hospital consultations came against a $4 billion increase in the health budget over the same period.
"Despite all that extra money, fewer people are getting to see a specialist and fewer people are getting operations."
In the House, Mr Hodgson defended his Government's progress in health and slammed Mr Ryall for "mining" hospital statistics until he found an attack point. Pressed on why assessments had dropped, he said he doubted they had.
"But I hope that one day we can look forward to reduced hospital admissions and reduced first-specialist assessments, because this Government is putting so much time, effort and money into building the primary health care system."
He named a range of health statistics that had improved under his Government, including immunisation rates (up), infant mortality (down), life expectancy (up), the cost of GP visits (down) and the employment of around 4000 extra nurses and more than 1000 more doctors.
Elective surgery rationing has been a continuing problem for the Government.
Last year it announced a $60 million-a-year increase in funding - expected to lift the number of procedures by 10 per cent - but not until after the Health Ministry had forced district health boards to remove thousands of people from lists because they were not sick or disabled enough to be seen within six months.
Yesterday, Mr Hodgson said his new figures showing a 6 per cent rise in elective surgical discharges in the year to February showed the new money was having the intended result.
