National’s promise to increase the number of elective surgeries to 200,000 is bizarre, given Jonathan Coleman has claimed 200,000 electives are already being performed.
Is National setting itself a target it's already achieved? RNZ asked Labour for its source material, which were Ministry of Health elective surgery documents provided under the Official Information Act. Fact or Fiction has ignored Labour's commentary around the OIA material and only used the raw data to assess this and the following claim. No captionJonathan Coleman Photo: RNZ / Rebekah Parsons-King Since the 2015/16 year, the Ministry of Health has monitored two sets of elective surgery figures: elective surgical discharges (i.e. completed elective surgeries); and elective surgical discharges and 'arranged' surgical discharges (same-same-but-different to elective surgery). The second set of figures is the one currently used to report on the government's much-touted 'more elective surgery' health target. In the 2015/16 year, the target was 200,460 elective surgeries - Jonathan Coleman said in Parliament that this target had been met. In his press release announcing National would 'lift' the number of elective surgeries from 174,000 to 200,000 by 2021/22, Dr Coleman appears to be using the first, older definition - which the Ministry of Health still measures, but does not use as the target it sets for district health boards to meet.
Fact or Fiction: Which health claims are quackery?
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