Second surgery to open after hours

Press, 26 September 1989, Page 7

Second surgery to open after hours

By

Patrick Mclennan

and

deborah McPherson

Christchurch people can now choose between two afterhours surgeries with the opening yesterday of a medical centre in Riccarton Road in direct competition to the Bealey Avenue After Hours Surgery. A spokesman for the Len Kitson Medical Centre, Mr Hugh de Lacy, believed it was the first time direct competition in the provision of primary medical services had occurred in Christchurch.

“At this level I don’t think there’s anything to fear from competition in the provision of primary medical health care,” he said. The centre’s hours are 6 p.m. to 11 p.m. between Monday and Friday, and 9 a.m. to 11 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday. Fees range from $27 for adults to $l5 for pensioners and $lO for children during those hours.

Mr de Lacy said the centre’s fees were cheaper than those at the Bealey Avenue surgery because it was not open 24 hours a day.

The Bealey Avenue surgery’s marketing director, Dr David Langford, said he was concerned people did not get the wrong impression about its fees.

Although Dr Kitson’s centre was undercutting its fees, the surgery was a non-profit organisation, and its fees reflected the cost of providing a 24-hour-a-day service, he said. Fees at the Bealey Avenue surgery are $39 for adults, $25 for children, and $3O for pensioners and invalids.

The centre ran at a huge loss between 11 p.m. to 8 a.m.

and had to be subsidised by fees charged between 5 p.m. and 11 p.m., Dr Langford said. The fees were not charged to cover the cost of the surgery’s construction since the doctors and chemists had financed that and now owned it.

Mr de Lacy said the Len Kitson Medical Centre was picking up some of the services previously provided by hospital boards, which was in line with Government policy that those who could provide them “best and cheapest” should do so.

Doctors were not above the profit motive and all medical fees were profit, Mr de Lacy said. Money made from the centre would be channelled back into the community at “a greater rate than some State services,” he said. “The competition will keep both surgeries on their respective toes and provide the best possible health care.” Dr Kitson’s centre, situated on the corner of Riccarton and Clyde Roads, is one of 17 medical centres Dr Kitson controls nationally.