Pahīatua blood services needing more funding

A lack of funding could see changes in blood services offered at Pahīatua Medical Centre.

Blood services at Pahīatua Medical Centre are at risk of being scaled down unless more funding can be secured.

Tararua Health Group operations manager David Ireland said he has been having conversations with MedLab and Health NZ on the issue.

He said the blood service provided to the community was “nominally funded by MedLab” but the costs incurred were considerably over and above what they got.

The health provider had approached MedLab, proposing an agreement but was told that under the laboratory’s contract with Health NZ it was not actually obliged to provide a blood collection service in Pahīatua.

Ireland said he had some “good, constructive discussions” with Health NZ which was fully aware of the issue.

“What we decided to do as well [was] to let the community be aware of the situation and get involved and hopefully support it.”

The centre circulated a petition asking for more funding, with residents asked to sign in support.

Ireland said from a business point of view, they would have to look at scaling down the service or, another option was the possibility of charging a co-payment, which was something he did not want to do. Nor did he want to cut the service.

“There’s no way in the world we want to [do that].”

It was hoped the petition would help put some pressure on MedLab to come to the table and talk to the health group as well.

“It’s not that MedLab are bad people,” Ireland said. “This is just a business process thing and there’s an impact for the community that the community needs to be aware of.”

He said it would create an inequity, particularly if reducing the service meant some patients had to go to Palmerston North.

“This is really symptomatic of what’s going on in the wider health system at this point in time.”

With the current economic situation, people were going through hard times at the moment.

“That’s where you’ve just got to be really careful to try and make sure that you know you’re not becoming inequitable and you’re trying to support the community as best you can.”

The petition has now closed. Ireland said the next step was making sure that people knew the views of the community.

“Hopefully it’ll give us an opportunity then to talk some more with MedLab and Health NZ and try and make sure we can secure the service long-term.

“That’s the aim of all this.”