Barry Soper: Senior Political Correspondent on ease of access for x-rays in the regions

The Government is putting $30 million towards free and timely access to radiology services including X-rays, CT scans and ultrasounds across the country.  

Health Minister Shane Reti made the announcement this morning during a visit to Waikanae Health Centre. 

Senior Political Correspondent Barry Soper told Jack Tame “The biggest problem has been in the provinces.” 

Soper said “At the moment, you’ve got to go to a specialist, to be referred for X-rays, CT scans and ultrasounds. You can imagine how long that can take.” 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
And you'd be senior political correspondent Barry Soapers here in studio.
Okayder Barry, Good evening, Jack. It is going to be
easier to get X rays, et cetera, which is going
to come as a massive relief for a lot of people.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
Oh, I think so absolutely. It won't only be X rays,
be CT scans and ultrasounds, and it'll be across New Zealand.
The biggest problem really has been in the provinces at
the moment. What has to happen is that you've got
to go to a specialist to be referred to get
an X ray, a CT scan or an ultrasound, which
can you can imagine the length of.

Speaker 1 (00:32):
Time that can comes up the works, doesn't it?

Speaker 2 (00:34):
Well? It does. And GPS are perfectly able to refer somebody, say,
for an example, on X ray, and you know they
then by the time he gets to the specialist, they've
got a very good case in point. I mean, you know,
I've had a lot of experience in medical area. Recently,
I walked in essentially off the street the other day

(00:55):
and had an X rays due to have one, but
there was no problem health number and got one. In
a city like Auckland. It's not altogether that difficult, but
it's in the provinces that is a real concern and
you'll be aware of this. Jack. Next week it's Men's
Health Week and that's really important. All men should take
much more care of their help. And one of the

(01:16):
medics that has been dealing with me, he said, what
should happen with men is that, like you have to
take your car for a warrant of fitness every year,
men should It should be compulsory in New Zealand from
men at fifty to have blood you know, blood pressure tests,
listen to the heart and if it was compulsory, you

(01:37):
wouldn't have the problems that you have further down the track.

Speaker 1 (01:40):
I'm not opposed to that idea.

Speaker 2 (01:42):
You can imagine imagine the civil libertarian Yeah, they would
go crazy and say, no, you can't do that. You're
imposing it, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:50):
But if you want your free healthcare, then you've got
to do your but go and get a warrant fitness. Yeah,
Christopher Luxen is not ruling out a larger and Tiparty Marty.
He's got to be careful with this stuff himself though,
just over any any perceptions of any you know, of
benefiting politically from any of this, and I think he's
played perfectly fine from now.

Speaker 2 (02:11):
Yes, no, And this this is an extraordinarily serious issue
that not only has possibly acts been broken, therefore the
law's been broken, but the sanctity of your senses. When
you fill out your senses form, you fill out a

(02:31):
lot of very personal information. Now this has been photocopied
as the allegations are by the Mudd Eye that the
successful multi party candidate was the chief executive of and
used for political purposes and similarly for COVID immunization. If

(02:53):
material has been used for that, then it is very serious. Indeed,
we know that Stat's New Zealand is having a look
at a complaint has been laid with the police, but
to my mind should take a bigger inquiry than that,
because we're not only looking at possible criminality here, we're
looking at major privacy issues and really I think they

(03:16):
should be looked at very careful.

Speaker 1 (03:18):
Important to point out, of course, they have denied all
allegations of wrongdoing so far to Party Mahdi, the candidates,
John Tummerheaty, et cetera. I mean the point I made
just after four o'clock was in terms of a larger inquiry.
It's in the interests of the public, the voting public,
but also for those people at the center of these allegations.
You would think to be to be clear if that
you know they are they say they're one hundred percent
innocent of any of any long. Yeah, so you would

(03:41):
think that, you know, maybe it would be in their
interests given these allegations as well. The potholes are going
to be fixed, well.

Speaker 2 (03:46):
You know, it's incredible, and you know they're going to
spend really totally about four billion more bucks. I was
amazed that somebody has obviously gone around and counted the potholes,
because in New Zealand we had apparently last year sixty
two thousand potholes it around the country.

Speaker 1 (04:05):
Really, do you know they can use AI for some
of us. I know they've been using this recently. What
they put a camera on the front of the car
and then they drive along the and the camera works
out what's a.

Speaker 2 (04:14):
Pothole and we know we've got a pothole exactly. You know,
it really is a problem in New Zealand. I don't
know how much you drive, but you know I drive
reasonable amount on open roads, and you do have clangers
every now and then. But do you know I was
thinking when we were talking about potholes. The worst country
in the world that I've experienced for potholes. It's where

(04:36):
Chris Luxen is at the moment, are in the Pacific
and Fiji. And I remember many many years ago going
to the first coup when the current prime minister there
said to be around Booka had taken the place over
at gunpoint and I had to get from Nandy to
Suva in a big rush because the coup had just occurred.
I'll tell you what, it was a hell of a

(04:58):
job to get there. Potholes everywhere the roads have been
looked at for many many years, and we can't get
into a situation in this country. People do complain every
time they've got and drive on the open roads. So
I say good luck to the government. Get in there
and fill in these bloody potholes.

Speaker 1 (05:16):
Very good, Thank you for your time. Very that is
very sober. For more from Hither Duplessy Allen Drive, listen
live to news talks it'd be from four pm weekdays,
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