SOLO-NZ Press Release: Die While You Wait - Ain't it Great?
February 21, 2008
New Zealand's "Die-while-you-wait" public health system has finally been exposed for what some of us have always known
it to be: a bloated, bureaucratic, dangerous, inefficient, disaster. Hobbled by taxation, and lied to about the quality
of our public health system, most New Zealanders are unable to afford, or haven't even considered, private health care.
"Private health care is what the country should be turning to," Says SOLO spokesman Lance Davey, responding to a
ministerial advisory body's report revealing that 40 patients died as a result of serious medical errors in the public
health system in 2006-07 (this, on top of hundreds of mishaps that nearly resulted in deaths).
"Contrary to public perception, a privatised health industry is no more 'only for the elite' than the wholly private
food industry is. If you accept the 'truism' that health care is an essential service and therefore must be provided by
the state, then why do we not see a Ministry of Nutrition and Sustenance with free and subsidised food handed out to
all? Food, after all, being even more essential to life than health care. Yet with food production in the hands of
private companies, we enjoy affordable food from an ample supply. A completely privatised health system, devoid of the
bloat, bureaucracy and busybodies that come with a public health service, would be just the same. You'd get better
quality of service, more for your money, more advanced treatments, and you could opt for different providers, all of
whom will be competing to attract your custom.
"Health care in the hands of the state is wasteful, crippling, deadly and dangerous. We're forced to pay for it, coerced
into using it and dying because of it. It's time for the state to get out of the health care business, their refusal to
relinquish the reins of health care to those who can provide it the best is quite literally killing us."
ENDS