Well Health supports calls for accessible health services

Well Health supports calls for health services that everyone can access

Wellington-based Primary Health Organisation (PHO) Well Health supports UCAN’s calls for community-based publicly-funded health services that are focussed on providing health care to everyone who needs it, when they need it, where they need it.

Well Health has 13,600 enrolled patients across Eastern Porirua and inner city, southern and eastern suburbs of Wellington, most of them with high and complex health and social needs.

Well Health CEO, Justine Thorpe says, “As a PHO our responsibility is to ensure the health and wellbeing of our patients and clients. We need to be funded to make sure every one of those people have access to and are supported to access our services.”

“It is becoming increasingly difficult to do this. Primary health care services are facing direct funding cuts on top of no “cost of living” increases on the majority of contracts for four years.”

“With the gap between rich and poor growing, and no Government policies to reverse the impacts of poverty on vulnerable communities, community health care services are left trying to do more with less. Increasing fees is not an option; our patients are struggling financially already.”

“It makes sense to fund community-based health care services properly so they can care for their high health needs populations. When patients can’t access primary health care due to financial, transport or other constraints they end up in hospital emergency departments much sicker and needing much more expensive acute care,” Thorpe says.

“The Minister of Health needs to look at the big picture. Funding community-based health care that caters to the most vulnerable New Zealanders would be money well-spent.”

ENDS

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