Labour wastes $50m on health bureaucracy

Heather Roy Wednesday, 18 May 2005

Health

“New information has revealed that Labour has wasted over $50 million dollars a year on bureaucracy, instead of real health services since becoming Government, “ says ACT Health Spokesman Heather Roy.

Answers to Parliamentary questions and Official Information Act requests show:

- The cost of running Labour’s increasingly discredited Primary Health Organisations is around $26 million a year

- The new DHB Boards cost over $6 million a year to run

- Over $1.05 million is spent on special Maori Committees or consultation

- Ministry of Health bureaucracy has rocketed from 781 Full Time Equivalent staff in 2001 to 1,085 in 2004. Assuming an average cost of $55,000 a year, the extra cost to the taxpayer of this increased bureaucracy is around $15 million a year.

“Labour is wasting around $50 million a year on increased bureaucracy and Maori consultation and that is part of the reason why there is no increase in health services for the huge amounts of taxpayer dollars Labour has poured into health,” Mrs Roy said.

“‘Revelations that Labour is about to announce a one billion dollar increase in the Health budget for no extra services because it is politically popular, is an indictment on Labour.

The billion-dollar explosion for Vote Health in the budget includes: the existing $550 million annual increase, $110 million a year for asset testing, $145m for the nurses pay jolt, $61 m for the Holidays Act, $50m on additional DSS (Aged Care), $50m for demographics and numerous additional announcements that take the increase to well over a Billion dollars.

“The tragedy is that there is no health gain,” Mrs Roy said.

“The Health Minister’s own figures show that despite Labour pouring billions more into Health, the number of operations have not budged, with 61,000 patients assessed as needing surgery but stuck on waiting lists”.

“Labour’s record one billion dollar election year increase in health spending will deliver no extra operations and sets the Health system up for a crisis as the long awaited economic tightening bites,” Mrs Roy said.

ENDS

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