The nastiness engendered by a socialized medicine system

A 101-year-old Briton may be kicked out of New Zealand after immigration bosses rejected his plea to spend his final years living with his son, his only living relative. Despite savings of 145,000 pounds and a 33,000 a year pension, the widower may have to pack his bags after being told his circumstances "do not make him special." A retired research chemist whose son is a university professor, the man, who has not been named, had pleaded to stay in New Zealand after arriving in 2006.

Details of his case emerged yesterday, just three days before the arrival of 102-year-old Eric King-Turner, from Hampshire, who will be New Zealand's oldest ever immigrant. Mr King-Turner has been allowed to move with his Kiwi-born wife, Doris, 87, and has spent the last weeks sailing from Southampton to his new home.

But although the unnamed man told the country's Residence Review Board that he, like Mr King-Turner, is hale and hearty, officials have been unmoved by his plight fearing he may be a drain on health resources.

The centre of gravity of my immediate family is very clearly in New Zealand," wrote the man in a letter reported in a New Zealand newspaper yesterday. Hard-nosed bureaucrats, however, said if they wanted to stay in touch his son should make the 24,000 mile round trip to visit him in Britain. "Overall the appellant's age, his financial resources, the fact that the appellant has no family in Great Britain, do not make him special," the board said in a written decision. "The board appreciates the submission made that the appellant's son is the only living family member the appellant has, but for many years the appellant has lived in Great Britain, apart from his son and alone. "Presumably his son has visited him in that time and there is no evidence as to why his son could not continue to do this in the future."

The decision has drawn fire from New Zealand's opposition spokesman on immigration, Dr Lockwood Smith. "I don't think we have a very smart policy when it comes to old folk," he said. "To just say no is not good enough. "I know there are concerns that elderly people become a drain on society but where people are of significant means and they have assets and a pension it ought to be possible." More than 10,000 Britons were granted New Zealand residency permits last year, nearly 25 per cent of all immigrants.

Source





Australia: Queensland's public hospitals fail health tests

QUEENSLAND'S beleaguered public hospitals are putting lives at risk by failing to deliver adequate care across a range of key areas. A new report into the performance of the state's 40 hospitals in 2006-07 has measured their outcomes according to 29 specific "clinical indicators". Across the indicator categories of surgical, medical, gynaecological/obstetric and mental health, the report found 26 instances where the outcomes were substandard.

An analysis of the overall performance of the state's public hospitals, released separately to the report, also identified areas where there were inferior outcomes compared to their private counterparts. Across 15 areas where comparisons were possible, the analysis found outcomes in the public sector were significantly worse than the private. It said there was a much higher stroke in-hospital mortality rate in the public sector while complications from prostate and hysterectomy surgery occurred far more frequently. The only area where private hospitals were significantly worse than public was in the frequency of patients catching pneumonia.

While similar data is not available from most other states, Health Minister Stephen Robertson this week insisted Queensland's hospitals were performing as well, and in some cases better, than those elsewhere in Australia. "However, this report highlights areas where individual hospitals need to do better in a particular category," he said. "In every case, where a hospital recorded an unfavourable result, it was investigated and where necessary a management plan was put into place to improve performance."

The report found nine instances where public hospitals failed one of the 13 surgical indicators, with the Gold Coast Hospital responsible for three of these. There were seven failures across the medical indicators with three hospitals - Redland, Townsville and Ingham - found to have unacceptable rates of in-hospital heart failure. Redland was also one of three hospitals that failed one of the gynaecological/obstetric indicators. Across the mental indicators, five hospitals recorded patients getting depressed during long stays at a rate twice that of the state average.

Coalition health spokesman John-Paul Langbroek said the Government's multi-billion-dollar plan to fix the state's public hospitals was failing. "The Bligh Government's band-aid solutions are not working," he said. "This Government is not treating patients and they are failing to fix Queensland's beleaguered public hospitals."

Source