If people were poorly nourished because they could not pay for basic foods such as milk, and housed in a poor environment because they could not afford heating, then poverty-related illnesses would increase.
Ms Stickings (54), a family administrator and full-time caregiver to her severely head-injured sister, said if the Government was serious about reducing pressure on hospital services, it needed to concentrate on what healthcare was being provided.
While $80 million is being spent over four years to subsidise GP visits, Ms Stickings would like to see all doctors' visits free.
In recent times, more money had gone into surgical procedures, but broad medical care as part of community support services had been virtually ignored in successive Budgets, she said.
A brave government might also have been honest about the set-up of the district health boards - a "quasi-democratic monster".
The boards either could have been returned to central control, with the Minister of Health taking responsibility, or a better, community-based, democratic structure developed.
Ms Stickings said she worried the broad economic thrust of the Budget was to foist more responsibility on the poorest members of the community .
She asked whether the underlying health policy was to force people to pay more for their healthcare.
