HCH Asks If Active Review Is Passive Parking

Tuesday 5 July 2005

HCH Asks If Active Review Is Passive Parking

“HCHs’ monthly meeting unanimously rejected the current ‘active review system’ for elective surgery and termed it passive parking,” Eleanor Carter Spokesperson of Health Cuts Hurt said today.

She was commenting on the Government’s “active review” system where thousands of patients who currently do not cross the bar for elective surgery are supposedly provided with a programme of “active care and review”.

“These patients have been told that although they need elective surgery, publicly funded treatment is not available to people with their level of need at that time, and that they will be placed on active review. Patients in active review are supposed to have their plan of care, including their level of priority, reviewed and updated at intervals of not more than six months,” said Eleanor Carter.

“GPs and specialists involved in the system mockingly term it ‘passive parking’,” said Eleanor Carter. “It is a national scandal that what occurs for most patients is that their condition will meet the access threshold for treatment in the foreseeable future, because their health condition deteriorates over the period!”

“With a $7b surplus the Government should be urgently reducing the waiting lists,” said Eleanor Carter. “Instead of buying into a tax reduction debate, other Parties should be pushing to get the thousands of patients off the passive parking list.”

ENDS

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