$68m for more elective surgery operations

Budget 2011 is delivering a further $68 million over four years to increase funding for elective surgery. 

The extra money is in addition to funding provided to District Health Boards through population and price adjustments and will provide even more operations for New Zealanders who need them.

“Significant extra Government funding has already produced record rates of increased surgeries for New Zealand patients – DHBs are now performing an extra 20,000 operations a year or 400 extra operations a week compared to 2008,” Health Minister Tony Ryall says.

“That is well over our original goal of increasing the numbers of operations by 4,000 a year. We have increased discharges from 118,000 in 2007/08 to an expected 142,000 in 2011/12.

“But we are not stopping there. Elective surgery improves the quality of a person's life – as do shorter waiting times for that surgery.

“We want District Health Boards to continue to help more people and to help them faster,” Mr Ryall says.