Election 2017 - Party Policies - Health - Children and Youth
27th May 17, 9:41am
by
Children and Youth
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- Review the Primary Health Organisations funding formula to enable children to have access to all health services at no cost
- Have a school nurse in every low decile school, and increase funding for Well Child providers (e.g. Plunket and Tamariki Ora) so that they can have smaller caseloads.
- Implement a strategy, based on prevention and community-based treatment, to eliminate Rheumatic Fever.
- Avoid fragmentation of services and require long-term contracts to ensure relationships are maintained between providers.
- Introduce free counselling for under 25s. Increasing funding for youth mental health by $100 million and funding for community inititaives by $41 million.
- Read more here, here, and here.
- Extend School Based Health Services to all public secondary schools so all schools have a comprehensive youth health service.
- Expand access to talking therapies (e.g. counselling) for young people up to age 24 years, with a focus on primary care services for those with mild-moderate mental health issues.
- Put in place a childhood obesity reduction target based on Ministry of Health advice, and provide a clear time-frame for industry to reduce sugar content in all processed food.
- Provide eighty health professionals to provide mental health services in primary and intermediate schools in Christchurch and other earthquake-affected parts of Canterbury, including Kaikōura, for an initial three years.
- Ensure that young people have better access to sexual and reproductive health services, including information about contraception and screening for infections.
- Read more here, here, here, and here.
- Introduce free GP visits and dental care (including after hours and weekends) for those under 18 years of age.
- Remove the $5 prescription charge for low income whānau and fully subsidise all prescriptions for over 65 year olds and under 18 years of age.
- Explore the rollout of IMOKO nationwide.
- Read more here.
- 58,000 pre-schoolers benefitting from our policy of free B4 School Checks - which helps give children the best start at school by identifying and addressing any potential health and development problems.
- We’re tackling childhood obesity - a new target means 95 per cent of children identified as obese in our free B4 School health checks will be referred to a health professional for support to improve their family’s lifestyle through better nutrition and more physical activity.
- Around 110,000 children benefitting from our free fruit in schools programme, which is targeted at low-income families.
- 780,000 children benefitting from our policy of free GP visits and prescriptions, as well as free after-hours services for all children aged under 13.
- Read more here.
- Ensure the nationwide health screening of all children under one year.
- Provide dental care to every pre-school and school child.
- Increase mental health service options and treatment bed numbers especially around child and youth mental health services.
- Read more here.
- Target infant health by concentrating on the appropriate support for parents before and after birth and ensuring high-quality extended care and support, including home visits, by lead maternity carers and Plunket;
- Improve dental services for primary and secondary school-aged children
- Develop and fund programmes focussing on better nutrition, particularly for children and youth; treat child obesity as a parenting issue and use parent education as the first line of attack to reduce obesity rates;
- Ensure that evidence-based information about immunisation is widely circulated, including the latest international developments, to promote informed decisions by parents;
- Improve workforce development and funding available for youth-focused counselling serves as the first line of defence; and explore use of new technologies (such as social media and phone apps) to provide support to youth in a method that they’re comfortable with (take the support to them).
- Read more here and here.
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