Ill in New Zealand: Six Months Later a Lot Has Happened

Nearly six months ago my life was turned upside down by a health scare. I loathe the clickbait vibe of “health scare” but to be honest, that’s what it was. A health scare in a foreign country, with an unfamiliar medical system, and which began in a remote part of that country. I wrote about my healthcare experience in New Zealand, and what the national health system here was like from my American perspective. As promised, here is an update. Ill in New Zealand: Six Months Later a Lot Has Happened

A Scary Visit to the ED

Full disclosure: I am lucky to not have heaps of experience with doctors, hospitals and clinics beyond health maintenance exams. So I can’t attest to the juggling of multiple health-related appointments in a government-funded medical system. That said, I can dispel American rumors about receiving urgent care in a distant corner of one of those systems.

A few days after being discharged from hospital (hospital being more proper noun than common in New Zealand, with no article before it), I didn’t feel well. In fact, I felt like I did before my pacemaker was placed, my heart doing jumping jacks at ungodly hours.

So I presented to the ED and was brought back to a treatment bay almost immediately. Nearly as quickly, my pacemaker was “interrogated,” and the readings were sent on to my specialist in Christchurch. Shortly after that, I was discharged, the local doc able to reach my cardiologist and confirm that everything was OK. I was back home within an hour and a half.

So, just as when my heart problem was identified, I received the care I needed quickly and effectively from highly competent providers on the wild west coast of New Zealand. No hours upon hours of waiting in an uncomfortable plastic chair. No protracted wait to hear back from my specialist on the other side of the island.

To put it another way, urgent and emergent care is delivered appropriately in this health system, the exact opposite of what we are schooled to believe in the U.S.

The Bills

In my week as a patient in the New Zealand health system, I received:

• A flight from our local hospital to a large medical center
• An ambulance ride (a Mercedes, I might add…)
• Room and board in a hospital for seven days
• An MRI
• A cardiac ECHO
• Bloodwork
• ECG’s too numerous to count
• Telemetry (a little box attached to ECG leads that transmitted my heart rhythm to the nurses’ station for monitoring)
• And the grand prize: pacemaker placement.

How many of the above would have been contested or declined by my insurance company had we been in the U.S.?

Several of them.

What would the costs out-of-pocket have been?

Hard to say, but let’s go with staggering.

How many bills have we received in New Zealand for the week’s worth of poking and prodding?

None.

Come again?!?

You read that right the first time…NONE.

My husband says there isn’t even a billing department at our hospital for services rendered. That hardly seems possible, but it’s true. You can’t send out bills if you don’t have a billing department.

The drugs

This has nothing to do with my inpatient experience, but it is something that has developed in New Zealand in the time since then, coincidentally in tandem with the Medicare drug price negotiations.

Until recently there has been a $5 co-payment on new prescriptions written by approved medical providers. After that, refills do not incur a charge.

Sounds too good to be true.

Well, hold my beer.

Starting in July of this year, that $5 fee is waived on all qualifying prescriptions, bringing the cost down to zero. Yes…zero.

Imagine my Yankee surprise when I got a new prescription filled and the pharmacy tech came out to the waiting area, handed me a neatly taped and folded parcel, and said: See ‘ya. (That’s Kiwi for Have a good day…) I was not expected to swipe my bank card or hand over a few Queen Elizabeth’s (she still graces the $20 note). The only payment needed was a polite thank you, and a see ‘ya in return.

I don’t think I’ll ever get used to that. The drug hand-outs, that is.

Physicians, Pickets, and Protests

Doctors are unionized in New Zealand. Couple that with the Kiwi panache for a good old-fashioned protest…and you have doctors hitting the picket lines.***

My husband was elated. He couldn’t wait to wear his union-issued t-shirt (yes, he “got the t-shirt”) and design a picket sign (What do we want? TIME TRAVEL! When do we want it? DOESN’T MATTER!). He started telling me to talk to his union rep when I asked him to take out the trash…but one withering look put the kibosh on that stunt.

But I do understand his enthusiasm. Physicians are forbidden by law in the U.S. to unionize, so this was a unique opportunity for him to vent (over-enthusiastically, fueled by U.S. health system baggage) over pay that isn’t keeping pace with inflation. A more than reasonable complaint from healthcare providers, given their valuable skills and wonky work hours.

No matter where they practice.

Ill in New Zealand: Six Months Later a Lot Has Happened

I can go for a run again. There are no burdensome hospital bills, the drugs are free, and docs are marching for the pay they deserve. A lot has happened in the six months since I was hospitalized. We knew living in a country with a national health system would be educational, but were not prepared for just how enlightening it would be. Stay tuned for more…

***So far these are scheduled strikes, so as not to completely shut down healthcare. (Docs honor “do no harm” above all else.) The first protest, for example, happened over an extended lunch hour.