More people are getting the operations they need, and they’re getting them faster, under National.
We are committed to delivering better public services and this week saw positive signs of this in the health sector.
New information from district health boards show an extra 7500 patients received elective surgeries in the past year – that’s more hip and knee replacements, more tonsillectomies, and more of all the other kinds of operations that greatly improve quality of life for Kiwis.
This is the fourth year of record surgery increasing under National – over the past year, 153,000 people got the operations they needed.
These strong results reflect the National-led Government’s focus on frontline services.
We also understand the importance of people getting the operations they need, as soon as possible.
We’ve put a particular focus on patients waiting for more than six months, and we have managed to greatly reduce the number of people waiting for elective surgery, or for a specialist assessment to see if they need surgery.
In the past year, the number of patients across the country waiting longer than six months has undergone a massive reduction, dropping 85 per cent from 5700 to 840.
At the same time, more and more of this country’s health graduates are signing up for the Government’s Voluntary Bonding Scheme.
A total of 2300 health graduates have now been accepted onto the scheme, and this year we accepted all 510 graduates who applied – that’s 43 doctors, 42 midwives, 411 nurses, 13 radiation therapists and one medical physicist.
Registrations have been spread all over the country, with even the smallest district health boards receiving half a dozen registrations each.
National wants more of our best and brightest home-grown health graduates to stay in New Zealand after graduation, and this initiative is helping ensure they do exactly that, using their skills to help their fellow Kiwis.
In 2008, the National-led Government inherited a public health service in crisis.
But we’ve turned this around – we’ve prioritised health funding to the frontline, we’re spending more than any other government in history and we’re achieving some great results.
In Budget 2012, we increased health funding to $14.12 billion this year – this will help to ensure New Zealanders continue to get the health services they need, when they need them.
Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi is a National Party MP