Contracting geriatric services urged

Press, 24 September 1988, Page 9

Contracting geriatric services urged

Contracting geriatric services to private hospitals could save the Canterbury Hospital Board a “substantial amount” of money, said a Christchurch private hospital administrator yesterday. Paying contracting fees to private hospitals would cost boards such as the Canterbury Hospital Board much less than what it cost them to look after their elderly patients, said the. manager of Parklands Hospital, Mr Bill Pearce. Caring for long-stay elderly patients in private rather than public hospitals could save taxpayers millions of dollars. Considering the Canterbury board was trying to save about $15.5 million, it should consider such an option, he said. Public hospitals . in

Auckland and Waikato were already contracting out their elderly patients to private hospitals, he said.

The fees for a long-stay bed at Parklands in Christchurch cost about $4O a day less than that of a bed at one of the board’s public hospitals. That was a saving of up to $2BO a week. The fees were about average for a private hospital. The figures were based on the board’s annual accounts published in March this year. “I believe we can provide just as good a service as the public sector, and at less cost,” said Mr Pearce.

Patients at private hospitals already received a percentage of the fee charged by the hospital if they belonged to the geri-

atric hospital special assistance scheme, but the numbers of people on the scheme were a lot less than those that required care. Public hospitals were fully subsidised. This year private hospitals had struggled to maintain a 75 per cent occupancy rate, yet many public beds continued to be used for long-stay care of elderly patients. At the beginning of the week, up to 51 beds were vacant in private hospitals throughout Canterbury, said Mr Pearce. The present review of health expenditure priorities should take into account the benefits to the community of directing more old-age patients to private hospitals, which were equipped to look after them at a more acceptable cost, he said.