"Dr Michael Bottrill has been quite rightly crucified because of his clearly inept and substandard performance as a pathologist," said Libertarianz Deputy Leader and Health Deregulation Spokesman Richard McGrath today. "Now it's time to start focussing on the politicians and bureaucrats who allowed this situation to get so badly out of control."

"Having the Health Minister and Director-General of Health release the report on the misreading of cervical smear slides in Gisborne is as inappropriate as having Dr Bottrill himself present it," he suggested.

"This report is after all a damning indictment of their own National Cervical Screening Programme, which has had several years and millions of taxpayer dollars thrown at it, and which has proven to be an abject failure.

"Come to think of it, the public health system has had seventy years to get it right, and the best it can do is to shorten surgical waiting lists by throwing people off them and back into the laps of their general practitioners," the Masterton doctor noted.

"When are people going to realise that it's creatures such as Annette King and Karen Poutasi that are the problem?" he asked. "In countries such as France, where there is still a vestige of honour among politicians, inept senior health officals have been jailed. In New Zealand, they seem to be able to slither out of trouble with bleeding-heart sob stories about how they'll never do it again. King and Poutasi could at least have the decency to resign. That would require integrity on their part so I won't hold my breath waiting."

Dr McGrath ignored statements on the matter from demoted Alliance list MP Phillida Bunkle, saying that a politician who doesn't even know where she lives shouldn't be listened to.

ENDS

Dr Richard McGrath * Libertarianz Deputy Leader * mongrel@winz.co.nz Fax 06 377 3070 Or contact Libertarianz Media Coordinator at (025) 861 927

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