Editorial: Foreign patients racking up debt

Foreign patients owe the DHB $110k.

Where would Rotorua be without its tourists?

There's no doubt our visitors make this city tick.

Just take the long weekend for example. The city was chocker from Friday through to yesterday with tills ringing for accommodation providers, food outlets and tourist attractions.

Rotorua comes alive during such weekends and despite the cold nippy air, it's great to see our city pumping.

The busy time comes off the back of some great weekends throughout autumn including Easter, Anzac weekend and the weekends we hosted the Rotorua Marathon and Te Arawa Regional Kapa Haka Championships.

But today we learn our visitors from overseas are also costing us money.

Foreign patients getting medical treatment owe a staggering $110,000 in unpaid bills. Some have already skipped the country without paying while debt collectors are hot on the heels of others.

Despite hospitals and doctors' surgeries doing all they can to recoup the debts, some of the debt has to be written off.

Our front page story today shows five foreign patients treated locally owed health authorities a total of $83,796 in the last six months of last year. The biggest single debt from just one foreigner came to nearly $25,000. I for one couldn't live with myself if I went overseas, racked up a debt that big and skipped the country. Isn't that what medical insurance is for?

It's my view if you can't afford any medical mishaps while overseas, you can't afford to go overseas in the first place.