Surgery lists, mental health get cash injections

By FRANCESCA MOLD and ANNE BESTON

The Government has fulfilled its major pre-election promise to attack surgical waiting times, announcing in the Budget an extra $74 million a year for non-urgent operations.

The money comes on top of $21.5 million pledged in a pre-Budget announcement in April, bringing the total spending on all elective surgery in the coming year to about $390 million.

This cash will be dedicated to slashing waiting times to a maximum of six months - something Labour has promised to do by the end of its first term.

The surgery funding came as part of a boost of $412 million to health in the coming year.

A total of about $7 billion has been allocated to Vote Health in the 2000-2001 year, an increase of 4.5 per cent.

A large portion of the new money will go to mental health and the Government has also covered its pledge to begin closing the gaps in the health status of Maori and Pakeha by diverting millions of dollars to initiatives such as smoking cessation programmes.

Almost $20 million over four years will go to helping Maori stop smoking.

Immunisation will receive an extra $11.8 million this year - for increasing coverage in areas such as South Auckland.

South Auckland will also receive $200,000 for a team to put in place a health improvement strategy for the region.

Rural GPs will receive $600,000 for a support scheme, which comes on top of $7.5 million for the rural sector announced earlier this year.

But while some health groups welcomed the extra funding yesterday, others described the Budget as lukewarm and full of yawning gaps.

There were concerns the Government had failed to address emerging problems such as the critical shortage of junior doctors, which experts predict will cause a staffing crisis in hospitals within the next year.

About $1.8 million has been committed to setting up a health workforce advisory committee over four years, but doctors say action is needed now.

Primary health-care workers were also feeling left out in the cold. After the Government's release of a new strategy for the sector earlier this year, doctors were disappointed to see no cash for implementing the proposed changes.

Health professionals have also been concerned to discover $30 million set aside for amalgamating the Health Funding Authority and the Ministry of Health and for setting up district health boards.

They had believed the restructuring costs would be covered in savings made by ditching the HFA.

In the area of mental health, the Government has delivered more than it promised, tagging $257.4 million of extra money to be spent in the next four years.

The funding will kick in next month, two years earlier than Health Minister Annette King promised during last year's election campaign and close to the wishlist of a 1998 report from the Mental Health Commission.

In the first year $27.4 million will go to mental health, climbing to more than $100 million by 2004, to be used to implement the commission's report, which is widely regarded as a blueprint for this health area.

A target will be services for mentally ill people who also have drug and alcohol problems.

Mrs King warned yesterday that it could take 10 years to put all the commission's recommendations in place, including recruiting enough mental health workers.

But she said mental health would no longer be the Cinderella of health spending.

Budget 2000 feature

Minister's budget statement

Budget speech