Government ignores poor child health realities

Simply reciting a list of current Government programmes as ‘evidence’ that our children’s health is improving, despite two new studies demonstrating that in preventable areas it isn’t, proves Tony Ryall has no real sense of the problem at all, Labour’s Health spokesperson Maryan Street says.

“Rehearsing immunisation statistics in answers to questions in the House does not address the fact that hospital admission rates of children for respiratory infections, skin infections and even some vaccine preventable diseases have risen over the last three years.

“The latest Children’s Social Health Monitor, released yesterday, shows that the major causes of hospital admission rates for Kiwi kids up to the age of 14 have increased in the last three years, not decreased. Just last year, 4000 more children were admitted to hospital than in the year before.

“In addition, medical conditions which abound in poorer households remain much higher for Pacific children, then Maori children and then European or other children. For every 100 European children admitted to hospital, there are 156 Maori children admitted and 251 Pacific Island children.

“The Minister had no adequate answer to this today. It is clear that continuing with what the government is currently doing is not going to make any difference.

“What is needed is a specific commitment to lifting children out of poverty, addressing income and housing needs and tackling unequal health outcomes head on.

“The report of the Children’s Commissioner’s Expert Advisory Group on Solutions to Child Poverty has not provoked the Government into any future commitment either. Instead of saying ‘we have to do something about this and we will’, the Government condescendingly says that it will ‘look’ at some of the recommendations.

“For a party which promised a brighter future, the National Party in Government has done nothing but make things worse for more people.

“This will be one of this government’s greatest failures: health inequalities amongst our children relegates them to a bleaker, not a brighter future.”