Press Release

Grey Power Requesting Clarification From Government On Health Issues

The NZ Grey Power organisation signified to the new Government its support for changes in the Health system, as long as they were of benefit to the consumer, and felt that as a new Government it would be able to announce many proposed changes from the outset of their term of office.

Policies are now being announced, and so far there only appears to be a re-shuffle of the existing Policies that had been the subject of criticism in the pre election campaign.

It would seem that there will still be the excessive number of Health Boards for NZ and although many Boards will be asked to work more closely with their neighbouring Boards the Board numbers will remain the same.

Grey Power had thought that reviews of existing structures needed to be conducted by independent evaluators and not by people who have vested interests and who in many instances have been responsible for the present policies.

Now some Boards are being told to cut their budgets as their deficits are too high, so it will be interesting to see if these demanded reductions will reduce services or administrators.

Health Budgeting by Health Boards has been questionable for a long time and any business using the same system would be unable to survive.

Many of the new proposals do not include consumer comment or participation and although it is stated that multidisciplinary integrated family health centres are to be established no details of this scheme seem to be available.

Grey Power still advocates that before more funding is made available to Health Care the existing funding must be made accountable.

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