Tuesday 24th July 2007

DSC Warns Against Proliferation of Charity Hospitals

While there is no doubting the admirable motivations of the people behind Christchurch’s charity hospital, calls for similar facilities to be set up elsewhere will play into the hands of those who wish to see the continuing fragmentation of the public health system and an increasing takeover by the private sector, according to Democrats for Social Credit health spokesman, David Tranter.

“There is a parallel here with the work of food banks which do a magnificent job in their field but by doing so inadvertently let governments off the hook regarding social policies which simply do not meet the needs of the increasing number of less well-off people” Mr. Tranter said.

“With the richest ten percent of New Zealanders holding 90 percent of the nation’s wealth there simply aren’t enough resources in health and other areas to go around. The more that charitable organisations take over what are rightly government responsibilities the less inclined those governments will be to implement policies which provide for all New Zealanders’ needs.

“As the rich-poor gap grows ever larger so a corresponding gap increases in terms of hospital treatment to where we are now seeing the emergence of a three-tier system; private care for the wealthy, public system care for the most desperately ill or patients whose G.P.s can commit the time to pushing them through absurdly tortuous waiting list bureaucracies, and now charity-based care for the small number fortunate enough to be picked up by the third tier - charitable/volunteer hospitals. Is this what National meant – and Labour continues - by the 90s health reforms catch-cry of “seamless” health care?

“This government, and its National predecessor which corporatised public health management, should be ashamed that New Zealandis witnessing a call for charity hospitals in a country whose public health system was formerly the envy of most overseas countries” Mr. Tranter said.

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