Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Malcolm Mulholland: Patient Voice Aotearoa Chair on the Government's health targets

Transcript

Malcolm Mulholland: Patient Voice Aotearoa Chair on the Government's health targets · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: So the government's health targets seem to be on track.
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: This is according to data released by Health New Zealand.
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Three out of the five goals are making good progress,
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: with youth immunization rates and access to cancer care improving.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: So I'm joined now by the patient of the Chair
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: of Patient voices Altera Roa and Malcolm mal Holland. Wanting
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: to you, Malcolm, thank you for getting up early. How
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: are you?
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah? Good, thank you.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: You doubt this data.
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: Very much. I've spoken to clinicians, oncologists, people who work
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: in the ED and none of them can believe, you know,
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: the story that the data is saying.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: Well, yes, we've heard lots of complaints about underfunding in
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: the health sector. We've heard about Nelson this week, we've
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: heard about Wanica, and yet the government says the statistics
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: are improving. How can they improve in spite of these accusations.
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, look, one of the metrics that is used
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: is about faster tenser treatment. So in that case, looking
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: at the time from the first appointment to the first treatment,
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: that's the wrong metric to be measuring. They need to
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: be looking at from the time of diagnosis to the
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: first appointment. We know that they are patients who are
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: waiting eight weeks or longer at Waikator, christ Each Wellington
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: in Southland, and in some of those cases the outcome
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: has been lethal. The patients have waited too long to
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: keep their first appointment. As a result, the tens to
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: have spread and there is very little the oncologists can
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: do at that point.
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: So you say the government is making the statement for
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: political reasons, and others might argue that you're making your
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: statements for political reasons because the government is investing thirty
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: billion dollars a year into the health system. That's an
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: awful lot of money.
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely it is, and I would love to know
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: you know how that thirty billion is spent. But my
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: motivations aren't political. They come from what is happening on
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: the ground. Another metric that is provided is around Edy
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: wake times. We note that the EDDY wake times don't
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: include walkout. We heard about Nelson where there was a
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: case where liver damage was caused by a walkout. I'm
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: aware of a case here at mid Central where a
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: patient went to ED, saw that it was overwhelmed, walked out,
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: died the following day at hospice. And we also know
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: that there were practices in the wider upper in Auckland
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: where eds were cooking the books. They were registering patients
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: being admitted virtually, but they weren't actually being seen, and
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: they were doing that as they neared the six hour
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: time frame.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: But that's not the government's fault necessarily, that's actually the
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: people on the ground at Health New Zealand, particularly that
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: ed you mentioned who you claim was cooking the books.
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, look, I think it does need to be a
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: level of honesty. But as I said to you, I've
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: engaged with nurses who have been working in these zed
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: departments and they claim that the practice is very much
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: alive and kicking, and that that comes from a certain
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: level of management who want to imprease the government, who
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: want to look good.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: All right, Malcolm and Holland, keep fixing out people, and
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: I thank you Chairperson of Patient Voices Alta. For more
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: from Early edition with Ryan Bridge, listen live to News
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: Talks it'd be from five am weekdays, or follow the
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: podcast on iHeartRadio.