What the parties say about health

LABOUR

Spend $2.4 billion extra over three years. Cut waiting times to six months. Improve access to primary health care. Invest $257 million over four years to rebuild the mental health workforce, pay off district health board deficits over three years, beginning with $114 million this year. Spend $32 million more on rural health.

NATIONAL

Develop a financial rescue package for debt-ridden district health boards. Nationwide planning for hospital services. Increase the number of hospital beds for mental health patients, review the Mental Health Act and support youth suicide programmes. Promote immunisation. Develop a child health information strategy. An extra $15 million for rural health.

GREENS

Increase spending on preventative health measures. Ensure accident and emergency services with operating theatres are within one hour's travel for 90 per cent of people. Extend public funding to include complementary health practitioners. Set up stay units for families of hospital in-patients. Improve professional training and auditing of health systems. Full labelling of medicines.

ACT

Promote economic growth to make health care more affordable. Promote public/private sector partnerships. Cut tax so people can pay for health insurance. No cuts in health spending. Replace race-based health priorities with need-based criteria. Review the mental health deinstitutionalisation strategy and current service crisis.

NEW ZEALAND FIRST

Raise health spending as proportion of GDP. Extend free health care for under-sixes to all primary school children. Nationwide health screening for babies under one-year-old, Hepatitis B, asthma, diabetes, breast and cervical and prostate cancer. Set up immunisation register. Fund extra mobile dental services. Review problems in mental health services.

JIM ANDERTON'S PROGRESSIVE COALITION

Free GP visits for school children and superannuitants. A general hospital offering general specialist services within 60 minutes by road of every New Zealander. Removing asset and income testing for geriatric care by progressively raising levels of assets and income exempt from testing. Improving quality and availability of mental health care. No release of genetically modified organisms until the technology is proven safe, except for approved medical use.

ALLIANCE

Raise $840 million extra for health with a one per cent levy on top of current taxes. Use the money to make doctors' visits and prescriptions free, give $200 million more to district health boards, $100 million for cutting waiting times, $20 million for the rural medical crisis and $55 million on mental and public health initiatives. No restructuring of current health system.

UNITED FUTURE

Publicly fund 80 per cent of primary health care. Promote health living, immunisation, prevention of illness and disease. Establish health clinics in schools and provide preventative and restorative dental care for the young and at-risk. Launch campaigns against illegal substance abuse and develop a long-term strategic plan for mental health care services.

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