When central government and the Northland DHB decided to downsize or remove rural hospitals emergency transport to distant hospitals was assured. After some years of acromony between the Kaitaia community and health authorities the then Minister of Health Annette King assured us that services would be better and safer transporting patients to Whangarei Base Hospital. For people in the northern reaches of the Far North district this meant an efficent helicopter service.

Now that services and medical staff have been reduced to the minimum and the Kaitaia, Dargaville, and Kawa Kawa hospitals have been reduced to a medical centres it is with some disquiet that the helicopter service struggles from lack of funding and has on a number of occasions been a hairs breath away from closing. Why? Because despite this being an essential service the government refuses to fully fund it demanding the community find a significant portion of the running cost. This was not the deal!

The Northland Helicopter and ancillary equipment is operated as a registered public charity for the people of Northland. It is operated by the Northland Emergency Services Trust and administered by Trustees appointed to this Trust. The helicopters are well equiped allowing patients to receive treatment during transit and the machines are of a size that ensures transit times are as fast as practical. They have been forced to take out a multi-million dollar mortgage to fund the purchase of these machines.

In Northland because of the large number of 100km highways, long distances and poor roads, when accidents occur they are usually bad ones requiring fast response times.

Since inception in 1998 the helicopters have carried over 7900 patients.  This equates to over 5% of the Northland population.  Present usage is about 550 missions per annum with around 650 patients.  Put another way one Northland person in 250 might use the Rescue Helicopter per annum. This is not a luxury but an essential service.

However, the provision of rescue helicopter services by Helen Clark’s government is seen as an additional service which government agencies provide in partnership with the community.  The payment rate is set as a national figure totally ignoring regional requirements. The local community must make up the shortfall - typically in the region of 50% of the cost. Farmers of New Zealand believes this is totally discriminatry towards rural communities and is not what this government promised when it shut rural hospitals down in Northland.

In the past the financial deficit has been raised using a number of methods such as;

1.     Public appeals

2.     Gaming Trusts

3.     Solicited and unsolicited bequests and donations

4.     Grants from Regional Councils and

5.     Support from service clubs

There is a cost for the community raising funds. Instead of fully concentrating on delivering the best service  management and trustees must allocate considerable time to the stressful issue of finding funds to keep the helicopters flying. Worse  to raise funds there is a cost. Typically 25% or more of the funds raised goes to pay for the costs of raising it. This is an additional unnecessary financial burden on the community.

The government has not been geniune with the rural people of Northland and it should immediately fully fund the helicopter service. Instead they waste taxpayer funds employing huge numbers of bureacrats pushing paper. In addition, due the reduction in staff working in rural areas and therefore the insufficient medical cover they fly locums in from overseas paying upwards of $10,000 per week for doctors to often sit at the beach. This while our local rural doctors are paid $20 per hour to be on call and emergency services are insufficiently funded.

Things must change.