DSC Condemns Scrapping of Special Medical Areas
Pete Hodgson’s announcement today that government has scrapped the South Westland SMA demonstrates their dismal failure to grasp the principles and advantages of providing free health care especially in remote rural regions, according to Democrats for Social Credit health spokesman, David Tranter.
SMAs were originally established to compensate for remoteness from health care facilities and also to help low socio-economic areas. Although transport has improved the extreme isolation of areas like the West Coast together with New Zealand’s ever-increasing rich-poor gap means that there are many regions around the country which could benefit from SMA status, Mr. Tranter said.
In addition, SMAs have features which could benefit all the country, not just the rural sector. Although Pete Hodgson says all SMAs are scrapped there remains one outstanding example which should be a model for services elsewhere, and that is the Hokianga free medical scheme. In addition to providing free G.P. visits for all 10,000 residents the Hokianga service also provides free dentistry and prescriptions – and all this for less cost per head of population than the New Zealand average for primary health care. The rationale for this is of course that early treatment by removing cost barriers ensure that health problems are dealt with before they become more serious and therefore more expensive to treat. This should be government’s guiding principle instead of being thrown on the scrap-heap as Mr. Hodgson’s announcement spells out, Mr. Tranter said.
The Democrats ask why this government is seeking to remove all traces of existing SMAs when they are at the same time boasting of reducing the cost of visiting G.P.s In the absence of any other explanation we can only assume that government are only interested in a “one-size-fits-all” corporate model for the care of communities throughout the country.
Published: September 2007