However, he is concerned about wait times for surveillance screening for patients who had possible indications of bowel cancer and needed to be checked regularly. While not a dramatic increase there had been an increase in waiting times for people who in the past had indication of possible bowel cancer but who are had shown up negative but who needed to be kept under surveillance. “. and delays in getting that testing done has been at a level that’s not acceptable. There is work under way to improve that. But in terms of the other measures for those services, the Southern DHB is more or less meeting the target times and the target volumes expected for that population,” Little said.
Minister of Health
· An
extra $200 million so Pharmac can pay for more medicines,
treatments and personal medical devices for sick New
Zealanders.
· $486 million to begin the transition to
Health NZ and health reforms.
· $2.7 billion
additional support over four years for District Health
Boards, contributing to a 45 percent increase to health
funding since the Government took office in 2017.
·
Establishing the Māori Health Authority, a key part of the
Government’s health reforms.
· Almost double the
number of publicly funded cochlear implants, restoring
hearing to people who have lost it.
Labour is
continuing its overhaul of the public health service,
backing restructuring with money to build and run hospitals,
JOHN KIRK-ANDERSON/STUFF
Canterbury health workers have celebrated the launch of the region s free bowel screening programme - part of a national effort to reduce bowel cancer deaths.
Some southern doctors have welcomed extra funding for the bowel cancer screening, but say it needs to come with extra funding to deliver the services that go along with it. The Government has announced that $13 million will be set aside in the 2021 Budget to complete the rollout of the National Bowel Screening Programme to the remaining six district health boards. The doctors supported more screening but warned that the programme wasn’t fully developed yet and that it shouldn t be offered at the expense of patients who were struggling to get onto colonoscopy waiting lists.