March 18, 2014
Emergency clinic rorts tackled
Waipareira chief executive John Tamihere says the Auckland District Health Board must put an end to the gouging of the city’s poorest communities by health clinics.
The west Auckland social services trust is urging the 50,000 people it has on the books of its health centre to go to Waitakere Hospital’s accident and emergency clinic if they have a problem after hours.
Mr Tamihere says once Waipareira Health closes at 5.30, people have to pay $92 at a private clinic, or $35 if they have a community services card.
That’s money people in the community don’t have, so they or their children wait until the morning, getting sicker, and too often ending up needing hospital care.
"We’ve had enough of the private sector rorting us and using our dire straits to force us to pay these sorts of dollars in our communities it’s the difference between making the rent payment, making the car registration payment, making the warrant of fitness payment. A lot of our people are on very tight budgets and on the margins," he says
Mr Tamihere says people going to the hospital accident and emergency clinic can expect a level of service and accountability that is absent from the private sector.
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