This week, The Front Page is asking the parties how they would fix New Zealand’s health system.
National
National’s relying on its track record when campaigning on health, pointing to its Government’s $30 billion annual investment in the sector.
The party says it’s had a hand in delivering more than 16,000 additional elective procedures, 66 additional medicines, including 33 new cancer medicines, and extended regular prescriptions to 12 months.
A re-elected National Government would deliver a further $604 million uplift in Pharmac’s medicines budget.
The party’s health spokesman, Simeon Brown, told The Front Page that the party’s proud of its investment in medicines in its first term.
“Because we know how important that is. To get those medicines on the frontline takes pressure off the health system, but also helps people get the access to the medicines they have in many other countries of the world already,” he said.
The party is also promising to back new ways to bring the latest treatments to New Zealand through more clinical trials and locally produced Car-T cell therapy.
It’s also committing to lowering the free bowel screening age to 50 by 2029, completing the free breast screening extension to 74 by 2029, and delivering free cervical screening for all women between 25 and 69 from March 2027.
Labour
Labour would provide Kiwis with three free doctor’s visits a year via a new Medicard.
“Right now, 650,000 New Zealanders can’t afford to go to the GP, and 100,000 New Zealanders can’t afford to pick up their prescription,” the party’s health spokeswoman, Ayesha Verrall, told The Front Page.
“Under the Medicard, we’ll make sure that New Zealanders are entitled to three free GP visits when they need them, as well as free prescriptions, free maternity scans, and free cervical screening.
“That’s a substantial step to making sure New Zealanders get the care they need in the community, and that big problems don’t build up to become ones that require trips to hospital,” she said.
From July 1, 2027, the $5 fee on prescriptions would end under Labour, and from July 2028 there would be free maternity scans.
The party’s also offering free cervical screening for everyone aged 25 to 69 from October 2027.
A new Family Doctor Loan Scheme would offer loans of up to 90% of the cost of buying into a practice, capped at $500,000. They’d be interest-free for the first two years, giving doctors a decade in total to repay the loan.
Labour reckons this scheme would free up more than 4.5 million GP appointments a year nationwide.
Act
The Act Party is promising to build a National Cancer Centre with campuses in Auckland and Christchurch.
The party would establish an independent National Cancer Centre Foundation to attract philanthropic investment, use public-private partnerships, existing health investment, and private capital to fund the centres.
Act also wants to increase the share of the health budget spent on medicines by one percentage point each year, reaching parity with Australia in 2033.
“Australia spends around 12% of its GDP on medicines. In New Zealand we only spend around 4.9%,” health spokesman Todd Stephenson told The Front Page.
Act is promising to widen the list of conditions that can be treated by pharmacists, such as chest infections, skin infections, acute pain, sore throats, tonsillitis and gout.
“A community pharmacy is where a lot of New Zealanders are able to actually access healthcare needs.
“We know in some areas, GPs are under a lot of pressure, and so we want to allow pharmacies to do more, actually undertake the diagnosis and treatment of mild, minor ailments and other things like that,” Stephenson said.
Act also wants to enable secure 24-hour prescription lockers so patients can collect eligible medicines when it suits them.
New Zealand First
NZ First has a plan to “Make NZ Healthy” by shifting the focus of healthcare from treating illness to preventing it.
The party wants to put a spotlight on metabolic health, promote nutrition in schools, and back organic producers.
The party’s health spokeswoman, Casey Costello, told The Front Page the party would also push for a full, independent review of our dietary guidelines.
“I’m old enough to have gone through when we demonised butter, and then butter came back, and then we demonised eggs, and then eggs came back … we’ve gone through this flip-flopping around.
“The food triangle argument about what is the thing you eat most of and what’s the thing you eat least of. All of those things have demonstrated that if that was all right, if that was all okay, why have we got the highest levels of obesity in the OECD, you know?
“Something has to be relooked at as to what are the lessons, and we have an overload of information around supplements and dietary requirements and the latest diet fad and all those sort of things, and I think we’ve ended up with complicated messaging that we can support, simplify, and clarify,” she said.
Greens
The Green Party wants to provide universal, free and accessible diagnosis, treatment and management for all illnesses and injuries – including fully funded public provision of dental care, general practitioner clinics, ambulance and emergency services, aged care, palliative care and mental health services.
It would also increase the affordability of healthy foods and restrict the marketing, distribution and affordability of unhealthy and processed foods and beverages.
Party spokesman Lawrence Xu-Nan told The Front Page that the biggest issue facing the health system at the moment was a lack of funding.
“Also, where we are choosing to prioritise our funding. As a country, there is enough in Aotearoa for us to support and fund a quality public health service, and particularly I think tertiary health is absolutely important.
“One of the things we haven’t done particularly well is some of the preventative measures, and also when it comes to primary health.
“This is one of the reasons the Green Party is promoting some of the preventative measures through our policies, such as nutrition, healthy living, such as warm, dry homes. At the same time, scaling up things around working towards free GP, free dental, and all of that will alleviate some of the pressure we’re seeing in the tertiary health system,” he said.
Opportunity
Opportunity aims to establish a 10-year health plan that lifts funding from the current 7.4% of GDP to 9%.
“We know that our health system is under a lot of pressure, and our doctors and nurses are working harder than ever before,” leader Qiulae Wong told The Front Page.
“But they are stressed, they are overwhelmed, our emergency departments are overwhelmed, and at the same time we know we need to get more funding into primary care and prevention.
“So this isn’t something that we can fix in three years, and actually, I think there is growing consensus around political parties around what needs to be done.
“We can’t fix any of those things in a three-year political cycle, so we need everyone to get around the table and develop that cross-party plan with long-term funding commitments,” she said.
Te Pāti Māori
Te Pāti Māori wants to re-establish Te Aka Whai Ora (the Māori Health Authority) and establish a Māori Health Commissioning Agency.
They want the bowel screening age lowered to 45 for all people and to 35 for Māori and Pasifika.
The party would invest in free primary healthcare, free dental care, free medication delivery, and introduce marae-based clinics and mobile units.
It wants to restore smokefree targets and reduce nicotine in tobacco, increase Pharmac funding, and invest $1 billion annually into workforce development.
The Front Page is a daily news podcast from the New Zealand Herald, available to listen to every weekday from 5pm. The podcast is presented by Chelsea Daniels, an Auckland-based journalist with a background in world news and crime/justice reporting who joined NZME in 2016.
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