KEY POINTS:
The Act party wants to get rid of district health boards and put doctors and nurses in charge of hospital departments.
Act's deputy leader, Heather Roy, yesterday launched the party's health policy and said it had remedies for the poor governance and mismanagement of the public health system.
"The public perception is that no one can fix health," Ms Roy said. "The common misconception is that pouring more money in is the only solution. When we accept that there is only so much taxpayers' money we can begin making some sensible decisions."
Act would inject a one-off payment of $500 million to clear hospital waiting lists. Co-operation between public and private providers would be established for efficiency gains.
Hospitals would compete for delivering services by improving quality and lowering prices.
The Ministry of Health would be separated from day-to-day healthcare delivery and its functions would be determined.
DHBs would be disbanded and replaced with small, appointed committees to run local operations. "DHBs are elected under phoney democratic processes," Ms Roy said.
"In reality their job is to implement health policies. This farce of 21 DHBs replicating services needs to end."
- NZPA
