Debt for foreigners' health care

By MARTIN JOHNSTON

Hospital chiefs are objecting to health boards having to carry bad debts from caring for foreigners, saying that it deprives New Zealanders of treatment.

The Auckland District Health Board yesterday wrote off an unpaid $163,000 debt from a foreigner.

The man received hospital care for an acute condition, but the nature of it was not stated at the board meeting.

He was in New Zealand legally, but is not from one of the countries, such as Britain and Australia, to whose visiting citizens the Government gives free healthcare under reciprocal arrangements.

Chief financial officer Michael Boersen said the person the man had named as a sponsor under immigration rules offered to pay off the debt at $30 a month. This was rejected because it would have allowed the person to sponsor other non-residents.

Board chairman Wayne Brown said the board's audit committee had seen details of six other bad debts totalling about $190,000, some of which were for treating people who were in New Zealand illegally.

He urged board members to lobby MPs for changes.

Interim chief executive Garry Smith said the Health Ministry gave the board some money to help settle the bad debts of foreigners who are legally in New Zealand but from countries without a reciprocal health funding deal. But it did not pay any of the bad debts of people illegally in the country.