Green Party Preventative Healthcare Strategy

Download the Preventative Healthcare Strategy as PDF

Read the full Green Party Health Policy

Introduction

The Green Party believes we need to shift the focus of our health system towards prevention, tackling the root causes of disease, and keeping people well instead of just treating people when they become sick.

We spend at least $3 billion dollars treating preventable illnesses such as type 2 diabetes, skin infections and alcohol related illnesses. Until we reduce the numbers of people with preventable illnesses in our hospitals, and the amount of resources spent on treating preventable illnesses, the health system will remain in crisis, with ballooning waiting lists and deficits.

The Green Party wants to expand services that promote health and wellbeing and progressively increase preventative healthcare funding.

This strategy outlines how we will address the root causes of ill-health such as poverty, sub-standard housing, poor nutrition, and stressful work environments. It also outlines our approach of reducing harm to people’s health from exposure to toxic chemicals and the use of alcohol and tobacco. Finally, we summarize our approach to specific health areas where we believe we can achieve a significant reduction in preventable illness. These are:

• Reducing skin infections

• Reducing food-borne illness
• Increased provision of dental care
• Reducing adverse events in hospitals
• Making pharmaceuticals safer

Further monitoring and assessment of this strategy will be carried out to inform future development of the strategy and to help prioritise where additional preventative health funding is spent.

Strategic Approach—Risk Environments

People’s health outcomes are closely related to the environments in which they live and work. Therefore the first level of our prevention strategy is to address the “risk environments” that can lead to ill health. The key risk environments include: poverty, poor housing, poor nutrition & lack of exercise, and stressful work environments. Our approach in each of these areas is outlined below:

Poverty

The Green Party wants to end child poverty and will work to eradicate it by raising real incomes and core welfare benefits, and increasing funding for social housing and public education.

The Green Party will:

• Raise real incomes including the minimum wage to $15

• Set core welfare benefit amounts at a level sufficient to meet the basic needs of individuals and families
• Introduce a tax-free threshold of $10,000
• Provide secure and affordable social housing

For more details, see our:
Housing Policy—Living Well
Income Support Policy

Housing—Keeping Warm, Keeping Healthy

Uninsulated homes contribute to respiratory illness, time off work and school, and additional deaths over winter months. The Green Party has secured $53.4 million to insulate all state homes over the next five years and, more recently, as part of the Emissions Trading Scheme, we have secured a $1 billion dollar Green Homes Fund to ensure all homes will be insulated over the next 15 years.

The Green Party will also:

• Establish a locally based advisory service to provide free or low cost audits of homes and advise on measures to improve their energy efficiency and incorporate renewable energy options

• Help provide energy efficient, low emission home heating devices as part of the Green Homes Fund
• Accelerate the state house building programme to provide more quality, sustainable low income housing

Supporting Healthy Lifestyles

We have created an environment in New Zealanders where unhealthy food is more heavily promoted, more accessible and often cheaper than healthy food. We need to change this and make healthy food more accessible and affordable. This will significantly reduce obesity, Type 2 diabetes, and other chronic dietary related diseases. It will also reduce the strain on the health system, as it is estimated that spending on Type 2 diabetes and obesity is around $900 million per annum. In the next 8 years it has been forecast that the cost for Type 2 diabetes alone will rise to $1,300 million per annum.

To promote healthy living, the Green Party will:

• Progressively increase funding to prevent illness and injury and promote health, to at least 10% of the total healthcare budget

• Introduce a free annual wellness check for all New Zealanders and more extensive wellness checks at key life stages
• Increase investment in diabetes prevention
• Remove unhealthy food television advertising before 8.30pm and develop a 'traffic light' labelling system for food
• Extend the fruit in schools programme to all primary schools and early childhood services in NZ and ensure healthy food is sold in schools
• Teach our kids about nutrition and how to grow, harvest, prepare, cook and enjoy healthy food
• Promote sport and physical exercise for children and young people and encourage active modes of transport.
• Make our cities safer for pedestrians and cycling by reducing speed limits around schools

Flexible Working Hours and Reduced Stress

New Zealand has a culture of working long hours and this is causing ongoing stress for many employees, especially those with dependents. We want to change our culture of working long hours and empower people to make choices that support their work-life balance.

To achieve this goal, the Green Party will:

• Support the extension of flexible working arrangements to all workers, rather than just those with dependants

• Extend paid parental leave to a total of 13 months paid leave
• Improve the annual leave and domestic leave entitlements available for people returning from parental leave
• Establish a separate domestic leave entitlement to provide (over time) up to 10 days leave for sick dependents
• Research the economic and social effects of a 35-hour working week in New Zealand

Key Risk Factors to People’s Health

The next level of our preventative strategy is to address key risk factors to people’s health that lead to preventable illness. Exposure to toxic chemicals, tobacco use, and alcohol abuse have been identified as key risk factors. The Green Party wants to reduce the impact of these factors on people’s health.

Hazardous Chemicals and Toxins

Constant exposure to toxic chemicals in our food, households, and our wider environment undermines our immediate and long-term health leaving us vulnerable to a range of chronic diseases including cancer. Our toxics policy will dramatically reduce exposure to the worst offenders. (For more specific information, please see our Toxics Policy.

The Green Party will:

• Aim to reduce pesticide use by 50% within five years, with annual monitoring and reports on progress

• Routinely test imported food to ensure it does not contain illegal pesticide residues
• Require full content labelling of cosmetics, personal care products, household products, fertilisers, and pesticides
• Ensure the rights of workers to protection from toxic substances
• Phase out all existing hazardous substances that are carcinogenic or hormone disruptors, where safer alternatives exist, and fund research into safer alternatives where these are not already available
• Halt aerial spraying of chemicals that are highly toxic; only permit aerial spraying when it is the safest, least toxic, effective method of achieving the desired outcome; and make cross-boundary trespass of pesticides an offence under civil law
• Amend the Cancer Control Strategy to include a strategy to reduce our exposure to environmental risks such as toxic chemicals and radiation

Tobacco—Clearing the Smoke

Tobacco smoking is a leading cause of preventable death in NZ, killing around 4,700 New Zealanders every year. Smoking costs the New Zealand economy over $1.6 billion a year and costs our health system $300-350 million a year.

We want to reduce the amount of tobacco related disease by:

• Requiring tobacco and cigarette displays to be out of sight in retail outlets

• Continuing support for smoking cessation programmes
• Support the use of pricing mechanisms to discourage tobacco use
• Ensuring that a comprehensive and effective drug education programme is available to schools and communities, which promotes the drug-free lifestyle as the healthiest informing young people of the risks of using drugs such as cannabis, alcohol, and tobacco

Alcohol—Reducing the Damage

The estimated social costs of alcohol harm range from $1-4 billion per year and the direct cost to the public health sector is $655 million a year. Some of our cultural attitudes to alcohol encourage alcohol abuse and contribute to our alarming rates of alcohol-related disease.

To reduce the harm caused by alcohol, the Green Party will:

• Stop the marketing of alcohol and require health warnings on alcohol products

• Amend by-laws to prohibit the concentration of liquor outlets near schools and in low income areas
• Support continued use of pricing mechanisms to discourage alcohol use
• Ensure that a comprehensive and effective drug education programme is available to schools and communities, which promotes the drug-free lifestyle as the healthiest informing young people of the risks of using drugs such as cannabis, alcohol and tobacco

Specific Health Areas for Preventative Action

There are other specific health issues where a change in priorities can produce immediate health gains. These include: dental care, the safety of hospitals and pharmaceuticals, skin infections, and food borne illness.

Improved Dental Care

In New Zealand, free dental care is supposed to be available for all children under 18. Nearly half of New Zealand’s adolescents are not accessing this service because dentists claim the subsidies are so low, they cannot afford to provide the service. The Green Party is committed to providing genuine free and accessible dental healthcare for those under 18, dental education during childhood, and encouraging healthy eating habits.

The Green Party will:

• Provide free dental care for students, beneficiaries and people whose sole income is derived from superannuation

• Provide one free annual dental check for all New Zealanders
• Support a levy on products which are detrimental to dental health such as soft drinks and tobacco to be allocated to a stand alone fund to offset some of the costs in dental treatment for under 18-year-olds
• Increase subsidies for dental care providers so that they are prepared to offer free dental care for all children under 18
• Promote comprehensive oral health and education in preschools and schools including on the availability of free services for all children under 18

Safety of Hospitals and Pharmaceutical Medicine

Each year thousands of people are adversely affected by the medical treatment they receive and by the pharmaceutical medications they take.

To reduce the number of adverse events and reactions and consequently save substantial resources, the Green Party will:

• Ban the 'direct to consumer' advertising of pharmaceuticals, because this practice drives up the demand for pharmaceuticals and plays down adverse reactions to drugs

• Require every pharmaceutical sold in New Zealand to contain a consumer information panel, which explains the risks and potential adverse reactions to that product clearly and comprehensively.
• Require pharmaceutical companies to disclose funding of medical professionals
• Subsidise pharmacists to work with doctors and registered nurses to develop pharmaceutical plans for older patients and high users of pharmaceuticals
• Amend legislation to make District Health Boards accountable for patient safety
• Ensure all hospitals and health services meet nationally consistent clinical safety standards including national infection control standards to minimise the risks to patient safety

Skin Infections

Skin infections are a growing problem in New Zealand. 14,334 people were hospitalised for skin infections in 2007. Many skin infections are preventable through education, proper injury care and hygiene as well as having strong immune systems resulting from good nutrition and general wellbeing.

The Greens will:

• Implement education programmes through schools and community based programmes through Primary Health Organisation’s on how to reduce the risk of skin infections by early detection and treatment.

Campylobacter and Food-Borne Illness

New Zealand has the highest reported rates of campylobacter poisoning in the world—three times higher than Australia and 30 times higher than the US. In 2006, Campylobacter, our major food-borne infectious disease, cost New Zealand $75 million.

To help reduce food-borne diseases in New Zealand, the Green Party will:

• Develop a national strategy to clean up the food chain and systematically eliminate hazards and risks of food-borne infection

Related work

In this strategy we have focussed on the areas that we see as being of primary importance in addressing preventable illness in New Zealand. We recognise that the issues outlined are not exhaustive and are committed to ongoing work to address preventable illness.

There are a number of related areas where the Green Party is working to prevent illness. These include:

• Antibiotics: we have secured $4 million for a surveillance system for antibiotic resistance

• Promoting safe driving to reduce motor vehicle injuries
• Promoting water safety to reduce water related injuries
• Introducing regulations around the use of sunbeds to minimise harm associated with their use