Eye care in the Budget!

For the first time ever, Vote Health, the main source of funding for New Zealand’s health and disability system and ACC, topped $20billion, rising roughly 3% to $20.27 billion in 2020/21. This includes an extra $3.92 billion for district health boards (DHBs) over four years, taking the annual DHB budget to $15.274 billion; a one-off payment of $282.5 million (including $50 million of capital investment) over three years for elective surgery and other care to clear backlogs; and 125.4 million over four years for demographic changes and increased costs.

“Budget 2020 delivers the biggest ever increase in funding for DHBs, as well as additional funding to deliver approximately 153,000 more surgeries and procedures, radiology scans and specialist appointments to help clear the Covid-19 backlog,” said health minister Dr David Clark. “All New Zealanders rely on our hospitals and other DHB services, and they’ve shown once again during the Covid-19 pandemic that they deliver world-class care.

“But we can’t take anything for granted. One of the key lessons of Covid-19 is the need for a strong and sustainable public health and disability system. As a country we have historically underinvested in health. Budget 2020 continues this government’s record of tackling that legacy of neglect.”

The government’s medicines and pharmaceutical buying agency Pharmac also got a funding boost with an extra $160 million over four years to secure and expand funded treatments.

Since Budget 2019, 13 new medicines have been publicly funded, including six new cancer treatments, said Dr Clark. “In fact, in the last two years, more than 200,000 New Zealanders have benefitted from 65 additional or widened access subsidised medicines. Budget 2020 locks in those gains… with an extra $10 million in 2020/21 and $150 million over the following three years.”

The increase takes Pharmac’s budget to a record $1.045 billion in 2020/21, a 20% increase since 2017/18.

Other health funding initiatives from Budget 2020 included:

• An extra $750 million for DHB capital spending, which builds on the $750 million announced in Budget 2018 and $1.7 billion in Budget 2019, plus $1.4 billion for the redevelopment of the Dunedin Hospital
• An additional $832.5 million over five years for Disability Support Services
• $7.67 million a year for the next four years for the government’s new Cancer Control Agency to address consistency in cancer care across the country

Budget 2020: General

At the centre of the government’s "Wellbeing Budget 2020” was a $50 billion Covid-19 Response and Recovery Fund, which builds on the $12.1 billion recovery package and $12 billion upgrade programme announced at the start of the pandemic.

“Budget 2020 is being delivered in the shadow of a 1 in 100-year threat to the wellbeing of our people, our communities and our economy,” said finance minister Grant Robertson in his 2020 Budget speech. “The global Covid-19 pandemic has sent shockwaves around the entire world and we are feeling these effects deeply here at home. I know that our success in controlling the virus has come at a price, with hundreds of thousands of Kiwi workers and employers having to stay home, and jobs and businesses lost. But I stand by our view that the best economic response is a health response. By going hard and early – getting on top of the virus, while protecting jobs and businesses – we now have a head start on many countries around the world to get the economy moving again.”

The $50 billion recovery fund includes:

• A $4 billion business support package, including $3.2 billion to extend the wage subsidy scheme for those business most in need
• A $1.6 billion trades and apprentices training package
• A $1 billion environmental jobs package
• $3.3 billion for health and education
• $3 billion for infrastructure and 8000 public/transitional houses