Cheaper doctors' visits scheme struggling

A Government scheme to provide cheaper doctors' visits throughout the central North Island is already struggling less than a year after it was launched.

At least two of the region's three primary health organisations (PHOs) claim they have not been given enough funding to do their job.

The three organisations -- Te Kupenga A Kahu, Health Rotorua and Lake Taupo PHO -- were launched earlier this year with the aim of slashing the cost of doctors' visits.

The Government subsidises visits to each organisation, based on patient numbers.

But Te Kupenga A Kahu claims the formula the Government is using is flawed.

The organisation, which represents three Maori health providers, was set up on April 1 to provide cheap health care to about 7000 mainly Maori patients in Rotorua.

It was given about $38,000 in establishment funding from the Lakes District Health Board to pay for start-up costs, including administration, meeting fees and feasibility studies.

However, six months on, all the establishment funding has been spent. There was not enough funding to establish a separate PHO office so Korowai Aroha has provided space in its own building in Rotorua's central city.

The manager of Korowai Aroha (one of the three health providers), Ngaire Whata, said while the organisation was coping with population-based funding, it was unhappy about "carrying" the PHO's other two smaller health providers.

PHOs would only succeed if each provider pulled the same weight, and unless changes were made, Korowai Aroha's commitment to the PHO's future could be in doubt, she said.

"I want it to work but it won't until we get all the infrastructure right."

Taupo PHO chairman Iain Loan said his organisation's funding was inadequate.

The Taupo PHO, which was launched on January 1 , received about $60,000 in establishment funding to provide cheaper GP visits to more than 35,000 patients across Taupo, Turangi and Mangakino.

Mr Loan said while patients had benefited from cheaper GP visits, the organisation did not even have an office.

"We meet in a coffee bar," he said.

PHOs in smaller regions deserved the same management funding as PHOs in larger areas like the Western Bay of Plenty, he said.

The district's largest PHO -- Health Rotorua -- received about $75,000 to get off the ground.

Made up of 55 GPs, it slashed visit fees to no more than $19 for about 65,000 Rotorua residents from April 1.

Service development manager Jeremy Mihaka-Dyer said the GP group had helped fund the PHO's start-up costs.

"We've cobbled together what we could."

Lakes District Health Board chief executive Cathy Cooney said the issues raised by the PHOs needed to be worked through by each of the providers.

With the three PHOs in Rotorua and Taupo, the Lakes region gets nearly $4 million of extra government funding a year to help provide cheaper primary health services.

- DAILY POST (ROTORUA)