Department ‘denying children treatment’

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33783, 4 March 1975, Page 18

Department ‘denying children treatment’

(Acw Zealand Press Association i AUCKLAND, March 3. Children suffering from a growth defect were . being denied medical treatment because of misguided Health Department policy, Mr Kevin Ryan told members of the Auckland Hospital Board this evening.

Doctors at Auckland Hospital needed pituitary hormone for the treatment, but the department was refusing to authorise incentive payments to encourage mortuary technicians to supply pituitary gland from which the hormone was extracted, said Mr Ryan.

As a result, he said. 16 or 17 children had been unable to receive the hormone treatment they needed during the last year, even though the total cost of the proposed mcentive payments • would onlv be about $2OOO a year “Children who deserve the chance of a reasonably norma) growth are being denied) the treatment they need.” Mr Ryan said. “I want to record mv condemnation of the Health Department’s attitude.” “DEPLORABLE” The chairman of the board (Dr F. Rutter) promised that urgent inquiries would be made “If what you say is true and young people are being deprived of necessary; treatment, then it is deplorable.” he said. One of the doctors responsible for the hormone treatment programme confirmed tonight that children were on a waiting list for un to a year because of a shortage of the hormone. The doctor, who did not wish to be named, said that] a New Zealand pituitary! bank had been run voluny tarily for the last 11 years, hut the number of children from all over the country I seeking treatment in Auckland had increased to such; an extent that the introduction of an incentive navmenti for morticians was the onlv way in which the need for pituitary hormone could be met. IMPORTATIONS The hormone treatment] programme needed 3000 i pituitary glands a year, buti at the moment it was receiv-l ing only half that amount.; Incentive schemes of this: sort had proved effective in Britain, Australia and the United States, the doctor said.

The bonus payment proposed for New Zealand was 50c for each gland. But instead of approving this, the department had just authorised the importation of a small amount of pituitary hormone from Sweden at a cost of $23,000. This hormone would be used to treat the 10 most urgent cases, the doctor said.

The choice before the Health Department was to continue buying the hormone from abroad, at a cost of $2340 a child each year, or to pay a bonus for the hormone to be obtained locally at a cost of only $66 a child. Asked what effect lack of treatment for a year would have, the doctor said: “Young children will not come to much harm, but the unfor-| tunate ones are the teen- 1 agers of 14 or 15 who are nearing the end of their period of growth and need the hormone to get that little bit of extra height.”