Good Things Take Time... Bad Things Shouldn't
The guys from Mainland Cheese may have the right recipe and are happy to wait it out until for years until their cheddar is aged perfectly.
But even those blokes sitting on the park bench amongst the picturesque Central Otago landscape wouldn’t want to mess about if they needed urgent medical treatment.
Waitlist Blowouts
We are lucky in New Zealand that we have a public healthcare system. When someone’s in a terrible accident or is suffering a heart attack, they’ll be sent without delay or cost and helped by some of the best medical professionals in the world.
But when it isn’t acute, that’s when you’re playing the waiting game and that game could cost you your life.
Pre-COVID, our healthcare system has always been challenged by limited resources, funding and long waitlists. The last two years and ongoing challenges with isolation rules has crippled the healthcare system to the point where it isn’t known how long it will take to clear the backlog to get back to pre-COVID wait times.
Not only are delays affecting people down to have surgery with constant postponements. It is also the backlog of people missing regular health check screenings. Sadly, many people may be diagnosed with life threatening illnesses that could have been treated more effectively if the diagnosis had been made sooner.
Cancer affects 1 in 3 kiwis. It’s our biggest killer.
In November 2021, the Breast Cancer Foundation NZ estimated 133 women didn’t know they had breast cancer due to the national breast screening programme being put on hold from the hard lockdown in Aug/Sep and the reduced capacity settings that continued for many months afterwards.
Delays in early detection mean it’s harder to treat and far more likely to come back. Tragically, it is expected that the 650 women who die each year due to breast cancer is now expected to rise due to delayed detection.
War on Drugs… the Legal Kind.
New Zealand is also falling behind many countries like USA, Canada and Australia with what drugs are made publicly available.
PHARMAC is the NZ Government agency that buys MedSafe approved drugs for use in the public healthcare system. The funding they receive from the government budget only stetches so far, and as new drugs become available to treat cancers and auto-immune diseases, for example, it is becoming harder and harder to get these publicly funded.
Last month, the Cancer Control Agency found that there are 18 more curative and life-prolonging drugs publicly funded in Australia that aren’t in New Zealand.
PHARMAC is always going to be up against it trying to fund these new treatments when the allocated funds are limited and costs continue to rise. So it’s not likely to get better anytime soon when compared to our Tasman neighbours.
When the drugs aren’t funded by PHARAMC… then there are typically three ways to cover the costs – sell assets/investments, set up a GiveALittle page…or health insurance.
At a cost around $8-10k per month for some of these non-PHARMAC drugs, it’s sadly beyond the means of getting treatment for more than a month or two without severely impacting on your future financial stability.
There is always hope though.
There are many quality health insurance policies across a number of insurance providers available to you. These can be tailored to meet your needs and objectives to give you peace of mind knowing that you won’t have to wait for those initial consultations and tests, and if needed, the best treatment available.
Getting the news that you might have cancer, or any other serious illness, would be stressful enough. Take away any stress and worry around your treatment so you can focus on your recovery.
Get in contact with Jonty to learn more about what’s available to you.