My poor boy got an ear infection and needed antibiotics, which meant a visit to the doctor. But our GP, like most others I’ve heard of, had a two-week wait for appointments.
Off we went to Second Ave Accident and Healthcare, where we paid the $50 fee for a child’s medical appointment and a friendly GP checked my boy and wrote us a prescription.
Thankfully, the antibiotics and Pamol were free, but we did have to pay $20 for ear drops as they were not subsidised.
Now, I’m not sure if you’re aware, but we’re in a cost-of-living crisis. Shocking, I know.
Seventy dollars may not seem much to some of you, but for those of us who’ve had to tighten the purse strings, it’s a heck of a lot of money. I mean, that’s my petrol budget for the week and then some.
Then, because it never rains but it pours, I was next to get sick.
Unfortunately for me, I didn’t get a nice, hidden ear infection. That would be too easy. No, I got an infection in my face and had to watch my nose rapidly triple in size. I looked like Grumpy from Snow White – and felt like him, too.
And then the pain started spreading around my face and to my neck which meant I, too, would have to pay a trip to the doctor.
But my options were more limited. There was that two-week wait at my GP to consider, and the walk-in fee at Second Ave was going to cost me $130, which, as hard as I tried, I could not conjure out of thin air.
So what did I do? I got on the phone and begged my doctors for help.
Boy, did that clinic work hard to get me seen. Somehow, they made it work despite having only three of their eight doctors working that day.
I am so thankful to everyone who pulled strings to make that happen at such short notice. It can’t have been easy for them but they did it anyway.
The $57 doctor’s fee was a lot more manageable than the $130 option, but it was still rough coming so soon after my kid’s bill. Luckily, my medicine was all free and, after about a week, my face was basically back to normal and I was safe to be seen in public again.
Why am I sharing these stories of my family’s medical woes?
Firstly, as an example of just how costly medical care can be for families, even though healthcare is supposed to be free for under-14s.
Secondly, to illustrate our GP shortage. I checked today when the next appointment would be available with any of my clinic’s eight doctors – not until the first week of November and those few slots are filling up fast.
Thirdly, to point out how incredibly important it is to have an affordable walk-in clinic available for people who need to see a doctor urgently.
If my kid and I had been sick in the same week, I have no idea how we would have coped financially. If my GP clinic hadn’t moved heaven and earth to get me seen the same day, I have no idea how I would have got medical treatment.
I probably would have had to go to the hospital. For antibiotics. That’s a ridiculous use of hospital resources and shouldn’t need to happen. But it does.
In August, the Herald reported patients were waiting up to four weeks to see their doctors.
And on Saturday, it was reported the Second Ave walk-in clinic was having to raise its prices because its current level of funding was not “financially sustainable”.
It’s scary.
Every day I am amazed at how people worse off than me manage to get by. Heck, as a middle-class homeowner, I’m far from the bottom of the pack and it’s still a struggle to account for expenses like these.
It’s just not right. Healthcare is a basic human need and should be affordable and accessible for everyone.
Sonya Bateson is a writer, reader and crafter raising her family in Tauranga. She is a Millennial who enjoys eating avocado on toast, drinking lattes and defying stereotypes. As a sceptic, she reserves the right to change her mind when presented with new evidence.
