Farmers to challenge rural hospital threat

Press, 28 July 1989, Page 21

Farmers to challenge rural hospital threat

North Canterbury Federated Farmers is to make submissions on the proposed closure of country hospitals. The president, Mr Oliver Grigg, will co-ordi-nate information and submissions to present to the Canterbury Area Health Board. He told the provincial executive this week that the total removal of services from country areas was not an acceptable option for cost cutting. How essential services could be maintained within the funding constraints was the question that had to be addressed. The executive was told that closing seven rural hospitals would save the board just $2.7 million out of a total budget of $270 million. Another $3 million could be saved if the Queen Mary Hospital

at Hanmer Springs was closed. The closures would hit rural women, children, and the elderly. Country G.P.s might also lose some business. Mr Bernard Duncan, of Darfield, said it cost the board $230 a day to have a patient in a country hospital. The hospitals were able to offer “low tech” care not available in city hospitals. In contrast, the high tech, high overheads of city hospitals pushed the cost of caring for patients to up to $6OO a day. “The board would be shooting itself in the foot by closing rural hospitals because those patients would have to be cared for in the city. “They should be looking at better ways to use the rural hospitals,” he said.

Mr Grigg said the chairman of the board, Mr Tom Grigg, had indicated the board would be willing to meet a small subcommittee from Federated Farmers.

Mr John Roy, of Oxford, said it should be remembered that funding cuts from the Government had forced the area health board to consider closing hospitals. "Nor should we be so blind as to believe our rural hospitals cannot be made more efficient. It costs just $B4 a day to keep a patient in the Oxford Hospital,” he said. The chairman of the Rural Support Committee, Mrs Dorothy Oakley, said the Minister of Health, Ms Clark, had said she would be happy to speak to people in areas where there was a problem with funding cuts. She suggested asking Ms Clark to visit a community with a rural hospital and find out how its closing would affect them.