IHC Accuses the Government of Ten Years of Indifference

IHC Accuses the Government of Ten Years of Indifference

Media release
12 September, 2013

IHC is accusing the government of indifference after ten years of inaction over a report that called for urgent steps to be taken about the health of people with intellectual disabilities.

A report launched ten years ago today called for urgent government action to improve the health outcomes for people with intellectual disability, but IHC says there has been little real action.

“To this day those recommendations have not been acted on and the health outcomes for people with intellectual disability remain poor. Life expectancy for this group of New Zealand citizens is twenty years less than other New Zealanders with many people living with preventable and treatable health conditions. It’s indifference on a nation-wide scale,” said IHC Director of Advocacy, Trish Grant.

Ms Grant said that it has been a decade of indifference when it comes to government action to improve the health status people with intellectual disability.

The National Health Committee report, issued in 2003 “To Have an Ordinary Life - Kia Whai Oranga”, included strong recommendations to government about improving the health status of people with intellectual disability.

It was hoped that the 2011 Ministry of Health report “Health Indicators for New Zealanders with Intellectual Disability” - which confirmed the National Health Committee’s concerns - would result in some meaningful action, but this has not been the case, Ms Grant said, and put New Zealand well behind its counterparts

“Australia and the United Kingdom are well ahead of New Zealand in tackling this issue, and, have implemented actions that work such as funded annual health checks for adults with an intellectual disability.

”We are calling for the Minister of Health to direct the Ministry of Health to undertake the actions required to address the heath needs of people with intellectual disabilities, and to require the Ministry of Health and District Health Boards to deliver annual reports on the health outcomes of people with intellectual disabilities, as measured against the government’s health targets,” she said.

Trish Grant said that the human rights of people with intellectual disability to have good health outcomes on the same basis as other new Zealanders should not be ignored any longer.

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