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Some elderly patients in Christchurch are being turned away by some family doctors, who claim they are too time-consuming and expensive to treat.
Doctors have said old people were sicker, usually with multiple problems, and often exceeded the allotted 15-minute appointment time, the Christchurch Press reported today.
GPs are blaming inadequate funding for the elderly and have raised their concerns at national level in response to a Health Ministry review of the primary health organisation (PHO) funding formula.
Chief Human Rights Commissioner Rosslyn Noonan has called the practice unlawful age discrimination.
"Every person, whatever their age, has the same right to the highest attainable standard of healthcare," she told the newspaper.
GP group Pegasus Health's clinical leader, Graham McGeoch, said if GPs were good with older people, their practice tended to get filled up with them.
"If by bad luck you end up with a lot of over-80s, you'll have a number of people you need to see 20 or more times (a year).
"Then you suddenly find you're making a loss."
McGeoch said he knew of one GP who had closed his books to elderly patients.
The receptionists told any elderly who called that the doctor was not taking new patients.
McGeoch said the bulk-funding formula was not sophisticated enough to compensate GPs for the extra work.
He said GPs' annual lump-sum payment per person over 65 of about $220 could be topped up by a maximum of $217 if the patient had two or more chronic conditions.
All GPs sign PHO service agreements that obliged them to accept enrolments from any patient unless they have a problematic relationship with that person.
The document prohibited refusing to enrol people "because of their health status and/or anticipated need for health services".
- NZPA
