12.00pm
The Government has thrown the ChildFlight Trust a lifeline for three months, announcing today the service would have its funding extended.
Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) and Associate Health Minister Ruth Dyson said the emergency air ambulance would be able to continue until November 2.
The Department of Internal Affairs has granted a
three-month extension before it withdraws site approval for six pubs that run gaming machines from which the trust receives funding.
The extension was made with the intention that ChildFlight find alternative arrangements for funding within that time.
The Health Ministry and ACC would work to develop a long-term arrangement for the service, Ms Dyson said.
"My priority is to make sure that sick and injured children continue to get specialist transportation to Starship Hospital in Auckland when necessary," she said in a statement.
Ms Dyson was confident of maintaining the service long-term.
The service, which transfers sick and injured children and babies to hospitals around the country, got into trouble through its sister organisation, the Auckland Rescue Helicopter Trust.
Last week a High Court judge ruled that Internal Affairs could withdraw the gaming licences of pubs owned by a subsidiary of the rescue trust. Both trusts depend on about $4 million a year from gaming machines.
The ruling came after former trust members were accused of allegedly misdirecting part of the pokies' profits back to a group of Auckland hotels.
Half of Childflight's budget is from slot machines, with the rest mainly from district health boards and insurance companies.
Health boards pay only up to half the cost of children's air-ambulance flights. It costs about $16,000 to fly a sick child from Invercargill to Auckland on a fixed-wing plane.
- NZPA
