New hope for waiting list patients

People who have been rejected from public hospital waiting lists for a surgical procedure now have a new source of hope – a virtual hospital being created by Dairy Flat general surgeon Dr Luigi Sussman.

Even better, should you be one of the fortunate ones to access this procedure, your surgery is likely to be done at the new Rodney Surgical Centre in Warkworth for free.

Dr Sussman says a trust, the Auckland Regional Charity Hospital Trust has been formed and is now looking for donations to help with start up costs for the scheme. Further down the line, between $5 million and $10 million will have to be raised by donation to build a charitable hospital, much along the lines of the Christchurch Charitable Hospital which sees about 1000 patients for free every year.

“We already have huge support from the medical fraternity and all we need is for local communities to get involved and give something,” he says.
The idea is to fill the gap between the public health system and the private system.

“There are many people referred to the public system who are then sent back to their GPs because their problem is not serious enough,” he says. “The GPs aren’t always equipped to deal with the problem.”

The free service would offer operations for such procedures as hernias, ingrown toenails, hemorrhoids, cataracts, tubal ligation and other non-urgent procedures. Criteria for accessing this free service are: the patient has been formally declined access to the public system for the procedure and sent back to their GP; the problem is not an ACC related issue; the patient has no private health insurance and cannot afford to fund the procedure himself.

“We will use GPs as ‘gatekeepers’ in the selection process,” he says. “They will select suitable patients who fit the criteria to fill the list at a given location and time. It will be a web based referral system with GPs having access to an alert system to tell them the date of the next surgeries and the type being undertaken.”

Mr Sussman says all procedures will be undertaken in private hospitals in the greater Auckland area, at no costs to the trust. However, the hope is to build a state of the art charity hospital.

“We already have a potential site and an architect ready to go. All we need is the funds for the actual construction. The location of the physical hospital will not disadvantage anyone as we will get transport operators on board to offer free transport for patients for their operations.”

Rodney Surgical Centre trust member Dr Andrew McGill has promised Dr Sussman one operating session of four to five hours each month until the charity hospital is built.

The trust has charity status and a website is almost up and running.

Info: info@aucklandcharityhospital.org

Luigi Sussman plans a ‘virtual hospital’ for the greater Auckland area.