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Speaker 1: We're all living much longer, aren't we? At what cost?

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Speaker 1: That's my question for you this morning. At what cost?

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Speaker 1: A report out at the weekend, human life expectancy has

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Speaker 1: just about peaked, They reckon globally it's lights out, goodbye.

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Speaker 1: On average for women between eighty seven and ninety, men

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Speaker 1: you'll make eighty four. In New Zealand, men you'll make eighty.

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Speaker 1: Women you'll make eighty three, which is great, longer life.

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Speaker 1: Every one wants one. Right now, we're told that we

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Speaker 1: also have a health system in crisis, people waiting in

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Speaker 1: waiting rooms, they can't afford to see a GP. Over

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Speaker 1: the weekend, they read about a family of a man,

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Speaker 1: a family man carpenter from Westport, sent home hours later

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Speaker 1: dead and lots of dil or. A month ago. Remember

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Speaker 1: that man died in the waiting room, the emergency department

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Speaker 1: waiting waiting. So we don't have enough resources for health

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Speaker 1: or we're not optimizing the resources that we do have

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Speaker 1: to meet the needs, and we're being overwhelmed by them.

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Speaker 1: And we have a huge aging population. The number of

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Speaker 1: people sixty five and over, which was around seven hundred

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Speaker 1: thousand a few years back, that will quadruple by mid

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Speaker 1: twenty four quadruple the number of people ninety and over

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Speaker 1: thirty one thousand. That will quadruple in twenty years, So

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Speaker 1: we'll have one hundred and twenty five hundred and thirty

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Speaker 1: thousand ninety plus year olds in New Zealand. Now, if

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Speaker 1: you're a doctor, you've got two people, both as sick

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Speaker 1: as each other. One's forty, one's ninety one might die

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Speaker 1: if you treat the other first. What do you do?

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Speaker 1: Serious question? I mean to me, The obvious answer is, well,

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Speaker 1: one person has had ninety years on this planet. You

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Speaker 1: know you treat the young one first, don't you? Because

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Speaker 1: the older ones had more life to live. Am I

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Speaker 1: saying let's stop treating patients based on need and discriminate

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Speaker 1: against the elderly. No, because I love my great mother,

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Speaker 1: you know what I mean. We have to do it

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Speaker 1: on who's sick, us, who's closer to death, all that

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Speaker 1: sort of stuff. But I am curious for those who

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Speaker 1: work in healthcare, is there a touch of bias on

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Speaker 1: who you might treat first. I know you've got the

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Speaker 1: hippocratic oath, etc. But if you if you're presented with

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Speaker 1: a situation like that, how do you respond to it

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Speaker 1: for more from Early Edition with Ryan Bridge. Listen live

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