A new group has been formed to protest under-funding in the health system:
Health workers, patients protest chronic health ‘underfunding’
More than 500 Canterbury patients and health workers have shared their experiences of New Zealand’s health system to show it has been chronically underfunded for years, a new national campaign says.
A coalition of health unions, Action Station and the People’s Mental Health Review are collecting stories, running a petition and carrying out a roadshow to help make health funding a hot election topic.
The group, YesWeCare, set up an installation featuring 200 life-size cut outs of health workers outside Christchurch’s Princess Margaret Hospital to make their point on Tuesday. Each figures represented 100 workers the health care system lost over the past eight years, Public Services Association campaign organiser Simon Oosterman said. The number was based on the group’s claim that an estimated $1.85 billion had been cut from the country’s health budget as annual increases failed to keep with up New Zealand’s aging and growing population. …
YesWeCare is well set up, with a web page, Facebook and Twitter accounts. (See also: Nine in 10 health workers feel understaffed.)
Cost of Warkworth to Wellsford motorway could double
The proposed Warkworth to Wellsford motorway north of Auckland could cost more than double the $1 billion figure of two years ago, latest estimates show.
The 27km motorway – still in its planning stages – is one of the government’s Roads of National Significance, and it’s price tag is now between $1.4bn and $1.9bn.
In response to written questions from the Green Party, Minister of Transport Simon Bridges said the benefit-cost ratio (BCR) is 25 cents for every dollar spent, but is still subject to more detailed analysis. …
A benefit of 25c for every dollar spent. Brilliant. While the health sector starves.
Our government has its priorities all screwed up.
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