These benefits come in many ways – people getting the care they need at the end of their lives, families getting support, and preventing overcrowding in hospitals.
Hospices can respond to the needs of patients and their families in hours, sometimes immediately, when they’re pain or experiencing other acute symptoms.
The alternative is often long, distressing waits in emergency departments or trying to navigate getting an appointment, sometimes waiting days to see a GP.
In addition, a referral to a hospice for first specialist assessment results in the patient being seen within a week, not months.
The challenge is that for all the good they do, New Zealand’s 28 publicly funded hospices are under serious financial pressure.
The way they free up resources in the overall health system needs to be better understood and valued – and how they are funded needs to change.
The number of New Zealanders needing hospice care is rising annually, and by 2043 it will have doubled.
Under the current system, hospices won’t be able to meet this demand because they are already struggling to pay the bills now.
Even though many parts of the health sector are under strain, there are many reasons why we should care about hospices.
They help people to be comfortable at the end of their lives. They help those with a terminal illness to live well and die well with care and dignity; they keep people out of hospital emergency departments and medical wards, which saves the healthcare system money.
We’ve always known anecdotally that hospices take a significant strain off the health system, and now we can prove it.
Hospices also support families, helping caregivers and loved ones return to work and school more easily after loss. It might be uncomfortable to acknowledge, but this support increases productivity and saves the New Zealand economy millions of dollars each year.
And most importantly, they do all of this at no direct cost to the patients and families who need their help.
Last year, it cost more than $226m to run the country’s hospice services, but the Government only provided $114m. Hospices raised $112m from community donations, fundraising, and other sources just to keep going.
If the Government doesn’t act now, essential hospice services could start disappearing. We know this can quickly become reality, as it did only last year in England and Wales, where there were multiple service cuts and redundancies among a skilled workforce. The UK has a similar model operating to New Zealand.
It also relies heavily on public goodwill, donations and thousands of volunteers. Hospices are run by incredible, hard-working people who stretch every dollar as far as it will go.
But we now need a new, fair and transparent funding model to keep doing their work. The Martin Jenkins report was commissioned because we can’t just keep asking for more money without evidence of our impact. We now have a longer-term solution built on evidence, and we’ve shared it with Health Minister Simeon Brown and key health officials.
Now it’s time for action.
We have faith the Government understands smart investment; that hospice care is part of the healthcare solution. We’re ready to partner with a new funding model to complement the new funding specifics Brown has said he wants.
Hospice care is one of the best investments the country can make. We now know the numbers. We now know the benefits.
Now we just need the Government to step up and secure the future of hospice care in New Zealand.
This makes sense with regard to healthcare, social issues, community concerns and now economics.
Imagine what New Zealand could achieve with greater investment in hospice.
