Untitled

Press, 11 May 1989, Page 3

By

SARAH SANDS

A decision to stall Canterbury’s cardiac unit could be a false economy by the Government, a Canterbury Hospital Board committee heard yesterday.

Fees paid by the board to other hospital boards for cardiac surgery on Canterbury patients could soon cost more than running a Canterbury cardiac unit, the health services committee was told. The chairman of the board, Mr Tom Grigg, said changes to the charges made when patients were transferred to other board areas were imminent. More information about the funding implications of the changes was needed before the board approached the Minister of Health, Ms Clark, with its concerns about the decision to stall the unit, Mr Grigg said. Canterbury pays about $475 a day for each patient transferred to another board area, but the new figures for cardiac surgery could mean the board pays $14,000 a patient for the surgery and an average stay of 10 days. Last week Ms Clark ordered the board to defer spending about $4 million to build the cardiac unit at the Princess

Margaret Hospital. “Now that Canterbury is about to take on the extra responsibilities of being an area health board, it should take some time to reassess its priorities,” she had said. The Dunedin cardiac unit could continue to provide a service for Canterbury patients while the board looked again at the use of its funds, Ms Clark had said. A board member, Dr Jocelyn Hay, said the decision was “absolutely scandalous.” “It shows a total lack of humanity to Canterbury patients who are forced to suffer longer than anyone else in New Zealand,” she said. “There’s a lack of justice for Canterbury patients. There’s all this hoo-ha about cervical screening and there are only 20 cases a year of cervical cancer. We are talking about hundreds of cases a year for cardiac surgery,” Dr Hay said. The acting associate general manager of patient care, Dr Ross

Fairgray, said the figures for 1987 showed that Canterbury people had more cardiac surgery than elsewhere in New Zealand and more Canterbury people were on the waiting lists for surgery. After the meeting, Mr Grigg said the Minister had not said that Canterbury could not have the service development money it was owed for being an under-funded board. “She says in her letter that there may be other areas we would rather spend service development money on,” Mr Grigg said. “I think it will take some time for Canterbury to get the money we are owed.”

According to the popu-lation-based funding formula, Canterbury is $14.9 million underfunded. It can recover this money only though service development grants for new services or to improve existing services. In the last year, Canterbury has received about $1.3 million in service development grants.