We get what we pay for — Plunket director

Press, 18 December 1985, Page 14

We get what we pay for — Plunket director

PA Dunedin Poor infant mortality rates come from inadequate funding, the Plunket Society’s national director, Dr David Geddis, said. “We get what we pay for,” he said. He was reacting to a Planning Council report which said the non-Maori death rate was twice that found in north-western European countries in the 1980 s. New Zealand once had the lowest infant mortality rates.

“I cannot provide the services without staff to do the job. I know what they should be doing, but they can’t do it,” said Dr Geddis, who is also medical services director.

The mortality rate would stay the same unless funding increased.

“So long as we continue to offer an under-funded, under-resourced service, we will continue to show up badly in comparisons,” he said. ■ -■= " :

“We like to think of ourselves as being on a par

with Western Europe. That is reasonable. However, Western Europe — and Sweden in particular - spend a higher percentage of gross national product on child health than does New Zealand. That is the bottom line.”

The Planning Council report dealt with infants aged between one and 11 months, but Dr Geddis said New Zealand’s standing for one to four-year-olds was equally poor. The report said New Zealand’s situation was about the same as Western Europe in the 19505. Since then, he said, New Zealand had underinvested. The position here remained the same while other countries progressed.

“It simply confirms what we have been trying to tell successive Governments — if there is no increase in spending, the children will keep dying,” Dr Geddis said. : The situation made him “very angry.”

He was involved with submissions to the Government

since 1977. Meanwhile, there had been no “significant” increase in district Plunket nurse funding for .15 .to 20 years. ■ An international workshop in Auckland last year called for increased Plunket nurse surveillance jof children at risk of cot death, the single largest killer of babies aged one month to one year.

“I cannot implement that recommendation without more staff,” said Dr Geddis. The report said ? infant mortality was a sensitive measure not only of health administration but also of social equity and social welfare programmes. He called that an “outdated thought” which applied in the 19405, when the death rate did provide a means of assessing the over all standard of living..' “Many conditions affecting children today are a direct product of our affluent lifestyle,” he said. In the one year to four agegroup, accidents caused 50 per cent of deaths? . 7.7-.,