Health: $3b boost and the spectre of cuts

The health sector gets a $3 billion cash injection nabbing 40 per cent of all new Government funding but cuts are planned.

Documents show there will be no increase next year, and funding will decrease after that and the bulk of this year's money is needed to maintain existing services.

The Budget was delivered a day after Wellington Hospital went into "code red", with gridlocked wards and an overloaded emergency department forcing cancellation of four elective operations.

Health Minister Tony Ryall said the back-to-basics Budget with its emphasis on hospitals, medicines, maternity and boosting frontline staff would deliver "better, faster, more convenient health services".

An extra 60 medical school places the first step in boosting trainee doctor numbers by 200 within five years together with a $15.3 million voluntary bonding scheme, would decrease New Zealand's dependence on foreign-trained doctors, he said.

A further $70 million is earmarked to train 800 additional health professionals to staff new elective surgery "super centres".

Auckland pensioner Violet McCowatt, 78, who has waited more than three years for a knee replacement, said waiting lists "cost the country millions".

"I know so many people who are just waiting and waiting and waiting and it's ridiculous when you think how much the Government must be spending on doctors' visits, pills and home help."

The drugs budget gets a $138.8m boost, not including the extra $46.9m for the breast cancer drug Herceptin, bringing total new funding for subsidised medicines in the next four years to $185.7m.

Medical Association chairman Peter Foley welcomed moves to address the workforce crisis and said the Budget was firmly focused on giving "the best bang for our buck".

"District health boards are going to need most of that increase [extra $2.1 billion] just to keep our heads above water but there is some real new money here."

Association of Salaried Medical Specialists executive director Ian Powell questioned where 800 extra professionals would be found. "We need a strategy for recruitment and retention that allows us to compete with Australia, where conditions are far superior."

New Zealand Nurses Organisation's chief executive, Geoff Annals, said he doubted the $89.5 million increase for aged care and respite was "anywhere near the amount needed".

Labour health spokeswoman Ruth Dyson said the Budget's short-term approach would be "a disaster" long-term. Taking $100 million from health to help pay for home insulation would leave services struggling.

WHO GETS THE MONEY?

Aged residential care facilities and home respite care $89.5m

Infrastructure $245m

Care for criminal offenders with intellectual disabilities $37.2m

Hospice care $60m Subsidised medicines $185.7m over four years

Previously announced:

Maternity services $103m

Eating disorder treatment services $26m nationally over four years.

- © Fairfax NZ News