DHB adviser charged with falsely claiming $33k in subsidies

Sione Tupou is charged with dishonestly using invoices to claim subsidies from the Ministry of Health. Photo / Thinkstock

A long-serving Auckland District Health Board staff member has been charged with falsely claiming more than $33,000 of taxpayer-funded subsidies for health care.

Sione Tupou, a health promotion adviser for the DHB, appeared in the Auckland District Court to face 18 charges of dishonestly using invoices to claim subsidies from the Ministry of Health over a 10-year period.

Court documents show the 59-year-old is jointly charged with his wife, Meliko, and daughter Akosita after an investigation into the invoices for carer support payments.

Carer support is a subsidy funded by the Ministry of Health or DHB to enable the unpaid, fulltime carer of someone who needs 24-hour care to have a break.

About $50 million is spent each year but not all families receive the help service because of funding constraints.

There are strict rules about who can be a support carer, paid $64.50 for 24 hours' relief.

Parents, including step or adoptive parents, are banned as well as anyone who lives in the same house as the person needing care or the full-time carer.

Meliko Tupou is the full-time carer for a close family member with a disability, and daughter Akosita Tupou is the support carer.

But investigators for the Ministry of Health allege that Akosita Tupou, 32, lived in the same Meadowbank house as her mother, father and the family member they care for, in breach of the rules.

The trio have been jointly charged with dishonestly using a document to obtain a pecuniary advantage, a total of more than $33,000 over 10 years.

Sione Tupou is a health adviser for the community child health and disability services for the Auckland DHB, as well as acting in other health advisory roles.

A spokeswoman for the Auckland DHB declined to comment.