Less for Canty abortions

Press, 9 February 1989, Page 7

Less for Canty abortions

Abortion services in Canterbury receive considerably less money than other centres in New Zealand, the Canterbury Hospital Board health services committee was told yesterday.

The chairman of the board’s house committee A, Mrs Margaret Ferner, said the Abortion Supervisory Committee had written to the board giving details of abortion funding throughout New Zealand.

Statistics on the number of abortions in each area and the amount of funding had been compiled by the supervisory committee using information supplied to it by the

Health Department, she said. The supervisory committee had written to the Director-General of Health in November expressing concern at the “maldistribution of funding” which was unfavourable to the abortion service in Canterbury, said Mrs Ferner. “The committee drew our attention to these discrepancies and felt if the board could do something also it would help,” she said. The acting associate general manager (corporate operations), Mr Bill Watson, said that according to the figures supplied by the department, Auckland received $639,667 for 3486 abortions, Wellington

$404,644 for 1483 abortions, Otago $425,687 for 357. abortions, and Canterbury $137,902 for 1062 abortions. This meant Auckland was receiving $lB3 towards each abortion, Wellington' $272, Otago $1192, and Canterbury $129, said Mr Watson. A board member, Dr Jocelyn Hay, said it was totally anomalous that Otago should get so much for each abortion. “This must be brought to the attention of the department,” she said. The committee agreed that the board should write to the Health Department about the funding of abortion services.