Pitiful mileage allowance dismays support workers

THE LONG wait to be paid petrol money has netted one home support worker an extra 30 cents for a day when she visits four clients.
She is angry at the small amount.
"That wouldn't pay nothing. Petrol is still going up. "That's four jobs I've got to drive, and I'm only getting 30 cents."
Mabel (not her real name) drives 11km on a Monday, to four homes where she helps elderly or disabled people with their housework.
Until last Monday, she was not paid for her travelling time or reimbursed for the petrol she used in her car to get from job to job. Her wages are the minimum for an adult in New Zealand ? $10.25 an hour ? and she is paid only for time she spends at clients' homes.
The new petrol allowance was 30 cents per kilometre, and was paid for every kilometre over 10km that she drove in a work day.
She and her fellow workers have been waiting for this petrol allowance since May 2005 and were disappointed by the small amount.
Mabel was also angry on behalf of her clients, three of whom were now not entitled to any help with their housework, due to changed criteria.
"One lady has got a bad heart and she's also diabetic. She has to inject herself every day.
"Another one has got a walking stick. She's got a bad back and she's also got a crook husband who's just had a major operation. She has to go and be reassessed."
New Zealand Home Health Association president Graeme Titcombe said the low per-kilometre rate was because the Government top-up was set at seven percent of $15, the estimated per-hour amount paid to support workers working in homes, and on the basis that they would drive an average of three kilometres per job.
Some workers travelled a lot more than 3km to see clients, especially in rural areas, and their employers had to make up the difference.
"It's a great discouragement for people to service rural clients."
He didn't understand quite how the Health Ministry calculated the funding but was aware that a population-based funding formula, combined with a 40 percent rural population, had disadvantaged the Whanganui DHB region.
Meanwhile, the public service reimbursement rate was 62 cents for every kilometre workers travelled in their own cars. The Automobile Association put the full cost of travelling one kilometre in a late-model car at 70 cents.
Mr Titcombe said something nearer to 50 cents a kilometre would be a more appropriate amount to pay home support workers.
Home support businesses weren't paying them for the first 10km travelled because the Inland Revenue Department didn't deem travel from home to work a reimbursible expense.
Government allocated more extra money for home support in May this year. This had gone out to DHBs but not made its way to providers yet.
There was no spare money to give workers back pay for kilometres driven since May 2005, and in Whanganui their wage increase three months ago was only the result of a rise in the minimum wage.
"There's no doubt that Whanganui and MidCentral (DHB areas) pay the lowest rates in the country," Mr Titcombe said. Whanganui was also the first DHB to cut home support services to people already receiving them.
"We are starting to see probably higher criteria being used to assess people, but to date it has been new entrants. This is the first example of services being removed from people already in the service."