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Posts Tagged ‘health priorities’

Why Ryall’s Health Targets Are Wrong

Posted by Iain Lees-Galloway on February 3rd, 2012

Labour, along with many people working in healthcare, has been saying for a long time that National’s health targets are narrow and simplistic, short sighted and lack enough focus on the looming problems for the health sector.

Yesterday, the Health Ministry’s briefing to the incoming minsterwas published. The ministry identified the priorities it thinks the government should be focused on:

  • Preventing cancer, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes and chronic respiratory diseases which make up 80% of the disease burden of the total population.
  • Improving mental health outcomes.
  • Adressing the long term health conditions facing our ageing population including the increaseing incidence of dementia.

Compare that with National’s targets:

  • Faster transit through Emergency Departments
  • More elective surgery
  • Shorter waiting time for cancer treatment
  • More immunisations
  • Better help for smokers to quit
  • Better cardiovascular services

The two sets of prioities do cross over on getting smokers to quit and cardiovascular services although these are the weakest measures in the government’s set. National’s cancer target is for treatment, not prevention and beyond that, the ministry’s prioirites don’t get a look in.

No one is saying that the things the government identifies as priorities are not good, worthy things that we want to see happen in our health system. The problem is that when this narrow focus is combined with reduced funding in real terms, all the other things that the ministry says need to be addressed now before they get out of hand aren’t getting the attention they need.

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Cancer Treatment Cut

Posted by Iain Lees-Galloway on January 4th, 2011

Mid-Central DHB is cutting chemotherapy treatment for certain types of cancer.

It’s clear that one of the over-riding reasons behind the decision to refuse some cancer patients treatment and the failure to even place them on the waiting list is to ensure that Tony Ryall can manipulate cancer waiting times to present to the media.

Cutting cancer waiting times is one of Tony Ryall’s narrow-focused targets for the health system. A laudable aim at first glance, but did anyone really expect that this would be the method used to achieve it?

National criticised Labour for sending patients needing cancer treatment to Australia when there was a shortage of specialists. We know now that instead of sending patients to Australia when there is a shortage, National’s answer is they just won’t treat patients who have some cancers.

Ryall has been virtually silent since this issue came to light. Guess there’s no photo-op in it for him.

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What Motivates You to Stay Healthy?

Posted by Iain Lees-Galloway on August 14th, 2010

It’s a slightly tired old saying but nevertheless true that prevention is better than cure.

Fittingly, it’s a mantra that resonates particularly in the Health system. Appropriate investment in the prevention (and management) of disease and injury is far more cost effective and socially constructive than waiting for you to get sick and only then trying to fix you.

Gareth Morgan recently wrote a column in which he notes that every dollar invested in prevention produces four times the results gained by a dollar spent in treatment.

It’s not a new concept by any stretch of the imagination. Some responses to the challenge of preventing illness have been successful, others haven’t. Some have been politically palatable, others have been labeled ‘Nanny State’.

So here are some questions:

  • What motivates you to be healthy?
  • Are you motivated to be healthy?
  • Can the Government motivate you to be healthier, if so how?

I’m keen to hear what you think because if we are really going to crack this one, we need to get alongside people and not just be telling them what’s best.

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Ryall won’t answer the obvious question

Posted by Iain Lees-Galloway on June 16th, 2010

Tony Ryall appeared before the health select committee this morning to answer questions on the health budget.

I put it to him that the fact that DHBs are cutting frontline services tells us that the small increase in the health budget is not enough to cover the cost of maintaining current services.

So I asked him if he thought that reducing the supply of health services would reduce the demand. (ie if you take the service away, will the community suddenly no longer require it?).

He completely avoided the question instead choosing to talk about his pet projects. When I attempted to get him back on track, the chairman, Paul Hutchinson, shut me down.

Put simply, health services for those who need them are not a priority to this Government.  National’s priority is tax cuts for those who don’t need them. No wonder the Minister is so evasive.

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Health Priorities Cut – Services Next?

Posted by Iain Lees-Galloway on May 17th, 2009

On Thursday last week Tony Ryall announced National’s health priorities and the targets he expects DHBs to report against. The announcement was timed to perfection for minimum exposure – right after the last question time of the week and right before everyone got wrapped up in the urgency shemozzle of the Auckland (or is that Tamaki Makaurau now?) Super City legislation.

Why wouldn’t Ryall want to make a big deal of his new priorities? Because three key areas – mental health, oral health and obesity prevention – have been dropped off the list. Ryall’s targets are heavily hospital focussed at the expense of primary health and prevention programmes.

What this clearly signals is a very short-term approach to health care. Gone is the focus on transformational change, replaced by the need to generate statistics in time for the 2011 election. It’s about helping the Government look good, not improving our health system. Ruth Dyson made a great statement about the flow-on effects.

Ryall says that not being on the priority list doesn’t mean services will necessarily be cut but I’m already getting reports that mental health funding and services in particular are under threat. Mental health funding is ring-fenced but many DHBs provide resources over and above that. One DHB has definitely told community providers in its area that the additional funding is gone and that the funding formula for the ring-fenced portion may be changed.

It’s great that DHBs will be expected to reduce cancer treatment waiting times and increase the number of elective surgeries (both of which were on Labour’s priorities too) but why does Ryall want to wait for people to get sick rather than maintaining some attention on prevention as well?

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