Fury as man takes up costly bed

Taxpayers have forked out more than $60,000 to keep a man in a hospital bed when he should have been in a community-based residential facility.

The cost has angered a health board member who says it would be cheaper to put him up at the Hilton.

Health officials say the man needs community care, but he has instead been kept in Auckland City Hospital because no one can agree where to place him and who should pay.

The man, who has complex medical and social needs, has been in a medical ward at Auckland City Hospital for nine weeks at a cost of around $1000 per day.

He is not eligible for funding from disability services, and health staff have yet to decide exactly what to do with him.

The man is unable to look after himself.

Auckland District Health Board member Ian Scott said it was "ludicrous" gaps in the funding structure meant some people took up expensive hospital beds instead of receiving less expensive and more appropriate community care.

"It's more than you would pay if you went to the Hilton," he said.

The Taikura Trust, which is paid by the Ministry of Health to assess patients needing disability services in the Auckland region, turned the man down because he did not meet the ministry's criteria for disability.

Derek Wright, mental health services director for the Northern region, admitted some people did not fit neatly into specific categories for funding purposes.

In such cases, health staff needed to assess the patient's needs then tailor a "package" of care before getting funding from an agency or group of agencies.

"Whatever need is identified, there'll be a placement found and a package [of care] placed round this individual," he said.

Auckland City Hospital manager Nigel Murray said the hospital encountered about a dozen patients a year who fell through cracks in the funding structure.

Dr Scott said there had been at least three similar cases in the past month at Auckland City Hospital. Other hospitals in the region had also had people staying up to three months because of funding problems.

The district health board's funding and service planning manager for mental health, Linzi Jones, acknowledged there was a problem but said that she was unable to make any further comment on the issue.

Dr Murray said any funding system had boundaries that certain patients fitted within for funding. "From time to time there are groups that fall between those boundaries."

He said the board was working with the Ministry of Health to create a funding mechanism for such patients so they no longer fell between the cracks.

He was confident they would find a solution within "a matter of months".

Ministry of Health disability services spokeswoman Trish Davis said finding a solution would involve making sure anyone wanting disability support services met ministry criteria.

- HERALD ON SUNDAY