Funding offered for union’s health clinic

Press, 15 October 1986, Page 32

Funding offered for union’s health clinic

,PA Auckland The Government has offered a trade union a three-year funding contract to set up a health clinic providing cheap medical care for workers in South Auckland. , The offer, to the Northern Hotel and Hospital Workers’ Union, is estimated to be worth $40,000 a year for each doctor hired. Other subsidies and grants are expected to boost that figure to $BO,OOO a doctor. The union sayS it in- , tends to hire four doctors and expects more than 10,000 patients to register with the clinic. It says the level of funding offered means that it will be able to keep patient charges to about

$5,. while paying a senior doctor between $60,000 and $70,000 a year. Funding for the experimental clinic will be based on the “broad principles” of a Board of Health report on - dual funding, which suggests that the State pay roughly half of the gross income of general practitioners. Both the union and the Minister of Health, Dr Bassett, see the clinic as a possible blueprint for future cheap health care for lower-paid workers.'' The contract has not yet been signed, but a spokesman for the union, Mr Paul Chalmers, said it was hoped to open the clinic before the end of the year.