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Health Action Wānaka Direction Committee (left): Lucy Middendorf, Monique Mayze, Trish Fraser, Nicky McCarthy, Brigid Loughnan. The group has published a new report showing significant service deficits, inequality in access to health care and health barriers.
Photo: Provided
- One of the fastest growing communities in the country is struggling to access medical care with a new report showing significant service deficits, inequality in care and systemic barriers.
- The reported report by Wānaka, of health action, found that some people were prepared to lose vision, because it was very difficult to travel to Dunedin and could not pay private care.
- The group is asking the Minister of Health to commit to three ‘quick victories’ to help relieve the community, including tele -feedback psychiatric consultations.
Some communities of Queenstown Lakes need to travel seven hours for medical appointments and pay for free medical care in other parts of the district, according to a new report.
The Wānaka Health Action report revealed that some people in the upper clutha have been forced out or choose not to access health care due to the costs and travels required.
But without investment, lawyers said they would only get worse with the population of Wanaka, designed to grow at a rate of 144 % by 2053.
When the deputy mayor of Wānaka and Queenstown Lakes, Quentin Smith, injured his spinal cord in 2008, he needed to travel to Christchurs regularly for specialized consultations.
“This is an 11 -hour trip at least 11 or 12 hours round trip to a 10 -minute appointment and this is very difficult to do in one day. This may require a flight or two flights and a night stay and these things are not covered by public services as well,” Smith said.
The population has tripled approximately since they moved to the area for over 20 years, but Quentin Smith said health services have not maintained demand.
“Families are forced to divide their family … or move away to access services for a period of time, and I saw it firsthand,” he said.
The new report of the community -led advocacy group, Wānaka Health Action, painted a dark image of unscored needs, people paying for free services in other communities, insufficient financing to meet demand and lack of planning.
More than 300 members of the community, as well as a wide range of local health professionals, were consulted for the research.
The group’s gate, Monique Mayze, said the infrastructure and services were struggling to keep up with the current demand, much less projected growth.
The nearest emergency department is at least an hour away in Queenstown.
Health Action Wānaka President of the Monique Mayze Director Committee.
Photo: Provided
“Imagine a winter night, it’s very cold, it’s very dark. There are a lot of road problems and people being forced to travel through Crown Range – the highest main road in the country – to reach an emergency department so they can have access to publicly funded health care,” she said.
“We should not be in this situation, we should get it here in our city.”
The report found that people were paying for acute care after business hours, x-rays and blood collection, although they were free to other parts of the country.
Their rural professionals had the abilities of doing more publicly funded procedures, but Mayze said the financing they received was not meeting the demand and they would be without it early.
She described the focal groups about mental health as “distressing to listen,” with parents describing the struggle to access support for children.
Residents who travel more than 2000 kilometers for visits to Dunedin Hospital in six months were not eligible for reimbursement of the national travel assistance scheme, the report said.
Cost and travel times were forcing people to think twice about access to medical care, said Mayze.
“Our concern is the people you don’t hear, the people who, in the middle of the night, need help and find out how much it will cost, and because it’s very expensive to choose not to access the service and wait until the morning.”
Inequality was indefensible and rural taxpayers should not face so many obstacles to access medical care, she said.
“We would like to change the perception that this is a rich community that can pay for their private health care. In fact, we have all the right to have access to publicly funded services here at Alto Clutha,” she said.
The health action Wānaka has asked the Health Minister to commit to introducing psychiatric telesaute consultations, a public blood collection service, and more access to public funding services with public funding announced last June.
Bernard Fouke moved to Wānaka with his wife Susan Ronn in late 2017, as soon as his health began to get down quickly with a neurodegenerative disease.
They needed to go to Dunedin every three to four months for specialized appointments.
Wānaka resident Bernard Fouke says that without private health insurance and his own money, he and his wife would not have been able to live there after his health quickly descended.
Photo: Provided
It was a difficult trip to his wife who wears a wheelchair, taking them from four to five hours for him to drive them and demanding a stay at night and a lot of organization, he said.
Fouke, a former medical professional, acknowledged that he was better than most because he has private health insurance.
“I can’t even imagine being able to do all this using just the public sector. I don’t know how people do it,” he said.
“I suspect many people just don’t bother to keep up with problems because of how hard it is to go to Dunedin.”
He paid about $ 850 every two weeks for private health insurance.
Without him and his own money, he said they would not have been able to stay in Wānaka.
“I think they need to get their eyes wide open, realizing that if they depend on public health care,” he said.
“I don’t see how people live here without having access to particular care and, of course, GP practice is also very expensive.”
He called the new, but complete, and said similar works should be done throughout Motu to create comprehensive plans for different communities.
Quentin Smith received the report, saying that he reinforced what they had known anecdotally for years.
The community continued to grow, so there needed to be a strategic approach to health services in the area and more investments, he said.
The report found that the lack of accessible housing and the cost of living was also pressuring the local health workforce.
In the report, Glaucoma endorsed the therapeutic optometrist Tui Homer, said some patients cannot afford to continue Dunedin for macular degeneration injections and could not pay in particular.
“This almost guarantees that they will be blinded or lose significant view of the disease. This has a snowball effect on health care (increased falls, etc.) as well as devastation to the patient,” Homer said.
Dr. Jim Reid, Dr. Jim Reid, said he was completely unprepared for discrepancies in the region’s resources.
“Blood samples had to be drawn on site, x-rays and ultrasound are promptly available in the private sector, but had to be paid and were therefore beyond the reach of some patients,” Reid said.
Patients would need ACC or travel to Queenstown or Dunstan Hospital to get them for free, he said.
Wānaka health action invited the Minister of Health to meet to discuss possible solutions.
The group wanted to collaborate with local organizations and providers to raise funds for projects, including the ability to provide locally selected specialized services – such as injections for eye disease, help patients with complex health care needs and offer rest.
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