People generally credit National as being a better economic manager but unfortunately don't always join the dots between that and better social services.
However, David Farrar shows the impact of Labour's increased spending for worse outcomes is showing up in Curia's polls:
. . . A year after the last election, Labour had a huge 36% lead over National as the party which had the right approach to the health system. Only 14% of respondents picked National, and 50% Labour.
In my latest poll in June 2023, Labour were down 16% to 34% and National up 16% to 30%. The 36% gap is now only 4%.
Based purely on spending, you would expect Labour to remain way ahead of National. In the 2017 Budget, Steven Joyce announced $16.7 billion for the public health service. In the 2023 Budget Grant Robertson announced $26.5 billion. That is a massive 60% increase over six years.
The problem is that despite this 60% increase, health outcomes for New Zealanders have worsened across the board under the current Government.
The money has all been spent, but outcomes for sick Kiwis have declined.
More spending isn't always more effective.
Multi-millions of dollars have been wasted on restructuring the health system and too much has been spent on the bureaucracy at the expensive of services.
I presume there are many more bureaucrats and consultants in the health system today, because the growth in doctors has been slower than in the past.
Between 2008 and 2017, under the Key/English government, the number of full-time equivalent doctors employed within the public health system increased from just below 6000 to just over 8400. This represented an increase of 42% over nine years.
Despite massive spending increases under the Ardern/Hipkins government, the number of FTE doctors has increased by just 16% in five years.
Data I recently received from Te Whatu Ora (Health New Zealand) following an Official Information Act request shows we are suffering a disastrous fall in our childhood immunisation rates. The Key/English Government lifted the 24 month immunisation rate from under 80% to 93%. More impressively the rate for Māori 2-year-olds went from 73% to 92%.
From March 2017 to March 2023, the overall rate has fallen from 93% to 83%, and the rate for Māori 2-year-olds from 92% to 69%.
A far better way of improving health outcomes for Māori would be lifting that immunisation rate for Māori back to over 90%, rather than introducing an ethnic weighting for surgery.
Prevention is not only better, but also less expensive than the treatment needed to cure illnesses against which immunization gives protection.
At the time of Labour's 2018 budget, where they promised $1.9 billion extra funding for mental health, there were 746 adult inpatient mental health beds.
Four years later this had dropped to 723. $1.9 billion more funding and fewer beds could almost be a script for a Yes Minister episode.
Youth mental health waiting times have also not got better, despite the $1.9 billion. Seventy-three per cent of under-25-year-old mental health patients were seen within three weeks in 2017. In 2022 it was 71%.
The proportion of emergency department patients who were dealt with within six hours was 92% in the last year of the Key/English government. The new health agency can't even tell us how bad it is in 2023, but the latest data for June 2022 had just 76% of ED patients dealt with within six hours.
More than 1 million people a year go to the emergency department, so that 16% decline represents at least 160,000 additional people who had to spend more than six hours waiting to be dealt with.
Elective surgery has also plunged. It increased to just under 150,000 elective surgeries in 2017/18 and last year was down to under 125,000.
Covid-19 has had an impact, but the number of surgeries dropped in both 2018/19 and 2019/20 also.
More shocking has been the increase in the number of New Zealanders who have had to wait more than 12 months for elective surgery. In 2017, only 59 New Zealanders had to wait over 12 months. In 2022 it was 4862.
Another health metric is waiting time for CT scans. In 2017 only 567 people had to wait longer than 42 days. In 2022 it was 2679.
Another health metric is access to primary health care.
GPs and their nurses are overworked. People are waiting longer to see GPs, and far too many are unable to enrol in a GP practice at all.
This is part of the fence at the top of the ill-health cliff. People who can't get ready access to primary health care become sicker and more will require secondary or tertiary services.
When you consider all this data, it is no surprise that Labour's lead over National on the health system has fallen from 36% to 4%. The only surprise is that they still have a lead at all.
If there is a change of government, I almost pity the likely Minister of Health, Shane Reti. There is so much work to be done to improve outcomes for sick and injured New Zealanders, that his job could be likened to King Sisyphus.
Good governments have both head and heart.
That poll result suggests more people are beginning to realise that and understand not only that National has both but also that both are necessary for better eocnomic and social outcomes.
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