who is misleading who on health care?

Blogger Jordan Carter is at it again. He has accused National's Health spokesperson Tony Ryall of misleading the public and states that our government has increased elective surgery discharges. Its all spin, of course. Designed to mislead. Intentionally.

But the world wide headquarters at Big News is not easily fooled.

Perhaps Mr Carter could enlighten readers why, despite a enormous increase in the Health budget since 1999, on 14 March 2006 during question time Mr Hodgson admitted that the number of people getting elective operations had fallen from 98,000 in 2001 to 96,000 in 2005. That is not an increase. It has further fallen to 90,000 in the ten months ending June 2006, which was 1200 fewer than the same period the previous year.

Perhaps he may like to explain why elective surgery is being restricted, primarily, to hip and knee operations while people with more equally serious conditions are being scratched from waiting lists and referred back to specialists.

Perhaps he may also like to explain why surgeons are doing elective surgery on hips and knees after patients have been waiting six months, given that the Government has said that all elective surgery must be done within six months. Could it be done to ensure that the Government tries to keep its pledge to double hip and knee ops (at the expense of other operations) by 2008?