Govt Misses Chance To Cut Costs, Relieve Pressure In The Health Sector

“Deeply disappointed. A missed opportunity and a short-sighted approach,” says Alzheimers NZ chief executive, Catherine Hall, when reviewing Budget 2025’s investment in the health sector.

As expected, Budget 2025 includes new funding for health services, including some funds to allow older people to recover or recuperate in aged residential care, rather than get stuck in a hospital bed when they don’t need it. But there is nothing designed to prepare the system for the long-term impacts of the country’s rapidly aging population, most of whom live at home.

“We know this Government is desperate for cost savings, hence any new investment in community-based health services was always going to be minimal.

“But New Zealand has a rapidly aging population, which is making increasing, and increasingly expensive, demands on our health system.

“With some sensible investment in community-based support now, Government could go a long way towards reducing pressure on the health service while creating an integrated health system that’s more accessible and sustainable for the long-term.”

Ms Hall cites dementia care as an example of a touchpoint that, if invested in prudently, would use health care funds more effectively, ensuring high-cost intensive hospital and aged residential care services are available when people need them.

New Zealand’s dementia rate is expected to jump by 240 percent; nearly three per cent of all New Zealanders will have dementia by 2050.

But she says community dementia services, which are relatively cheap to run, are under-funded and – resourced, and can’t cope as it is.

“Community dementia services cost just $11.11 a day, but because they are stretched beyond capacity, thousands and thousands of people with dementia are forced to seek the much more expensive hospital or aged residential care .

“Again, it’s a question of whether we are using scarce health care resources as prudently as possible.”

Ms Hall says dementia will cost the country nearly $10 billion a year[1] in inflation adjusted dollars by 2050 unless steps are taken now to mitigate the impact of this health condition.

“We are always hopeful Government will eventually see the wisdom of investing in community dementia support and in other measures that will help mitigate the worst impacts of this health condition, but Budget 2025 was another missed opportunity.”

Plan to Impact

On a global scale, Alzheimer’s Disease International released its annual Plan to Impact report overnight which reports on the progress in implementing the Global Action Plan on the Public Health Response to Dementia.

The report highlights the size and scale of the dementia challenge and states that time is fast running out for countries to avoid the worst impacts of the rapidly growing numbers of people. It also highlights that New Zealand continues to fall behind.

“It’s really disappointing that people living with dementia here in New Zealand have less access to services that in many like countries around the world, because services here are not fairly funded,” says Ms Hall.

“While we weren’t expecting any surprises in the Budget today, we’re still extremely disappointed.”

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