Govt targets diseases in South Auckland

The Government is spending $4 million on projects to reduce South Auckland's high disease rates by making the health sector work smarter.

The money has been tagged for schemes to improve the health of Maori, Pacific Islanders, children and youth.

The so-called "integration projects" are designed to improve co-ordination between hospitals and community-based health workers such as GPs so that people get more preventive healthcare and early treatment of illnesses.

Nearly a tenth of South Aucklanders aged under 15 have a disability or chronic illness.

Rates of measles and whooping cough have risen in recent years and the childhood vaccination rate in Otara is about 55 per cent, compared with 70 per cent nationally.

The Minister of Health, Annette King, has promised the region a computerised child-vaccination database, which health groups say will help to track children for health checkups.

At South Auckland Health, which runs Middlemore Hospital, the volume of acute cases is growing 13 per cent a year on average.

The chief executive, David Clarke, said last night that the $4 million for this financial year was "a good start." It marked the Government's recognition "that there needs to be a different way."

"This will take at least five years to turn around and it will take significant investment and a lot of leadership and courage."

Planned integration projects include schemes to increase vaccination rates, encourage breast-feeding and boost the uptake of flu vaccinations in at-risk groups.

Mr Clarke said 1700 people sought help from Middlemore's emergency department more than five times last year.

One project aimed to reduce that repeat rate by making greater use of health workers in the community.