Auckland wants to restrict access to resthomes

Some elderly people may face restrictions on where they live, if they want access to a state-subsidised resthome or private hospital.

The Auckland District Health Board wants to cut back $18.3 million of "overspending" on residential care for the elderly, which costs it nearly $70 million a year.

The board, whose deficit is forecast to reach $83 million this year, has nearly 50 per cent more elderly people in subsidised residential care than the national average - reducing the money available for competing priorities, like elective surgery.

It is developing a "one-for-one" policy to halt the drift of elderly people into subsidised facilities on the Auckland isthmus from other health districts.

The policy would, for instance, prevent a qualifying North Shore man from moving to a subsidised central Auckland resthome unless someone shifted in the opposite direction.

Alternatively, the Waitemata health board would haveto pay the subsidy. Auckland board officials are not sure whether the policy would be a service cut and therefore require the consent of Health Minister Annette King.

"That's what we are asking the Health Ministry about," planning and funding general manager Denis Jury said yesterday after briefing board members.

Other options mentioned in board papers include reducing the number of contracted residential care beds and facilities, but MrJury said there was no intention of doing that yet. Health boards inherited residential care from the ministry last year. Auckland has historically had a high number of residential care beds and the price per day was set higher than the national average - for resthomes $85 compared with $81 - yet the board receives no extra state funds for this.

The board is frustrated by what it believes is the ministry's failure to consider the issue adequately, although the ministry says it isdiscussing the matter with the board and is reviewing some aspects of resthome funding. Chairman Wayne Brown wants changes so that residential care is funded regionally for Auckland.

He said the alternative was to close facilities in central Auckland and open new ones in other health districts, but that would cause huge disruption.

"I think that when the politicians understand the implications of this they will wet themselves."

Grey Power health spokesman Graham Stairmand said elderly people were now free to choose which area they lived in.

"What the health board is proposing is restricting that freedom. We would be opposing that."