Cost puts many off healthcare

Up to a third of New Zealanders are missing out on healthcare because of cost, a new report says.

A Canterbury surgeon says the level of unmet healthcare needs is large but hidden by the slashing of hospital waiting lists to include only those being treated within six months.

An Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) report showed nearly a third of New Zealanders on below-average incomes had missed out on healthcare because they could not afford it.

The 2007 data said 21 per cent of people on above-average incomes and 30 per cent on below-average pay had not got medical care, missed a medical test, treatment or follow-up or did not get a prescription because of the cost.

The results were similar to Australia's, but much higher than in Canada, Britain and the Netherlands, where only 6 per cent of low-income people had unmet healthcare needs.

Some Kiwis also reported forgoing dental care because of cost.

A third of people on above-average incomes and 41 per cent on low incomes did not get a dental exam in New Zealand, compared with less than a quarter of low-income people in Britain.

Canterbury Charity Hospital Trust chairman Philip Bagshaw said the level of unmet healthcare in the community was large.

The charity hospital provides operations for people who cannot get surgery in the public system and cannot afford private surgery.

Bagshaw said waiting lists, although callous, were at least a way of illustrating the problem to the Government. However, people could go on the list only if they could be treated within six months, which in effect hid the problem.

"Everybody says the booking system was introduced to give people transparency, honesty and equity, but it was about making it look as though resources meet the need," he said.

Bagshaw said the cost of measuring the need, either through GPs or a population survey, would be worth it to show how big the problem was.

The OECD report said that when comparing hospital care with other developed countries, New Zealand fared reasonably well.

It said hospital admissions for lower-limb amputations and acute diabetic complications reflected the quality of long-term diabetes treatment.

While the United States had almost 60 admissions for acute diabetic complications per 100,000 population, New Zealand had less than 10. The OECD average was 21.

Kiwis also had better-than-average survival rates for colorectal cancer and breast cancer.

The New Zealand five-year survival rate for colorectal cancer was 61 per cent, compared with an OECD average of 57 per cent, and 62 per cent for breast cancer, compared with an OECD average of 61 per cent.

Stroke survival rates were not as good. Nearly one-quarter of New Zealanders hospitalised because of haemorrhagic stroke died within 30 days, compared with just 9.5 per cent in Finland and an OECD average of 20 per cent. New Zealand also had abnormally high rates of hospital admissions for respiratory disease.

- © Fairfax NZ News