Unpaid bills racked up by foreign patients at
New Zealand's largest health board rose by a third to $18 million last year.
It left
a $4.5 million black hole in the Auckland District Health Board's budget for
the 2010/11 financial year.
Bad
debt written off by the Counties Manukau District Health Board also jumped, to
$5.4 million in the eight months to February 2012, up from $1.7 million the
previous financial year.
Chief
financial officer Brent Wiseman said increases were mainly the result of
population growth and high numbers of overseas visitors passing through
Auckland.
"[ADHB]
has one of the highest amounts in the country of gross charges to ineligible
patients due to its position as a key destination and transit point for
visitors to New Zealand," he said.
Wiseman
said bad debt did not affect patient care.
"If
a patient is ineligible and acutely sick, they are treated in the same way as
an eligible patient. Recovery of costs incurred happens later."
Counties
health board spokeswoman Lauren Young agreed that rising population, combined
with increasing medicine costs, were causing debts to skyrocket.
"If
somebody turns up sick and in pain we are not going to ask for proof of
citizenship."
She
added that overseas debt was a "sensitive" issue: "I am loath to
suggest people might jump on a plane and try and come and rort the system, but
I guess that's possible."
Auckland
spent half a million dollars trying to recover debts from overseas patients.
New
Zealand has a reciprocal free health-care arrangement with residents from
Australia and the UK, plus citizens of Tokelau, Niue and the Cook Islands. Most
of those who leave hospital without paying are from other Pacific nations,
South and Southeast Asia, Europe and South America.
Bevan
Hurley
nzherald.co.nz
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