Budget offers little for older people

By Chris Valli

As winter and the cost of living increases, Grey Power Marlborough is disappointed last month’s Budget offers little for Marlborough’s aging population.

The removal of the $5 prescription co-payment was the centrepiece of spending on health in the recent Budget.

Health Minister Ayesha Verrall says it would ease household budgets while relieving pressures on hospitals. About 135,000 adults did not collect their prescriptions because of cost in 2021-22, Verrall says.

Grey Power Marlborough President Gayle Chambers says their seniors are pleased that the $5 fee on each of their medications will cease.

“For some of our seniors with many medical conditions the cost of collecting prescriptions was sometimes crippling to their already limited income,” she says.

However, one of the main concerns from their members is the ever rising cost of groceries, especially vegetables and fruit. She says many are now purchasing frozen vegetables while fruit is a luxury for those on a limited income.

“For those seniors who need to visit their doctor on a regular basis to get a new prescription they either have to ensure they book well in advance or they may not get an appointment when needed or end up seeing another doctor.”

“For some this is very stressful and does not help their overall health,” she says.

Meanwhile, Grey Power Federation president Jan Pentecost said she was disappointed not to find specific mention of older people and that the actual value of this budget remains to be seen because it will be ‘the details that will disclose the actual benefits or not’.

“This budget appears to have forgotten or chosen to exclude some of the most vulnerable in our society, those of our older people living in poverty even though the UN expert on the human rights of older people in her 2020 assessment stated the basic New Zealand pension was very close to the poverty threshold with 60 percent of singles and 40 percent of couples with little or no additional income apart from their pension.

Jan says the Government adjusted superannuation in April was the annual catch-up, not an increase.

“For numerous people national superannuation is all they have to meet the current rising rents and other cost-of-living crises. Many of these people worked hard in their younger years and to leave them behind now in their declining years is outrageous.

“It is a sad tragedy that seniors in their twilight years had been overlooked when it would have been relatively simple and cost-effective to ensure they lived the latter part of their lives in dignity. This was not a budget where we could say older people matter too.”

Pharmacy Guild chief executive Andrew Gaudin says waving the $5 fee would make a ‘huge difference’ to some patients who could not afford the fees and ‘had to make difficult choices when they are sick.’

The policy, costing $618 million over four years, was based on a University of Otago study that showed lower-income households who received free prescriptions were less likely to be hospitalised and spent fewer days in hospital than similar families who paid a fee.

Grey Power Marlborough is a non-profit society dedicated to advocating for the welfare, interests, and concerns of citizens in the 50+ age group. Membership with Grey Power Marlborough is open to all citizens/ residents living in the region.