MP Joseph Mooney has written to the Health Minister regarding the cutting of transitional rural health funding for Roxburgh Medical Centre.

Joseph told The Central App on Thursday (August 7) he had concerns about WellSouth’s financial management, and questioned how the ‘extra’ funding had gone unnoticed for 10 years.

He said there were “red flags” regarding the funding arrangements being transitional, with supposed overpayments of $130,000 made to HealthCentral for the Roxburgh Medical Centre.

“How does something of that scale slip through unnoticed?” he asked.

Joseph said given that a third of the Teviot population was aged over 65, it was a large portion of the community that needed access to health care.

“It’s a largely elderly group of people that are vulnerable.”

MP Joseph Mooney

The Roxburgh Health Services Trust is also seeking answers from WellSouth about its PHO funding, noting it had doubled in the past eight years.

The trust has written to WellSouth voicing its disapproval of the decision, but WellSouth said the transitional funding had been an error, and only meant to have been paid for one to two years.

It was still unclear the percentage decrease in funding Roxburgh would receive - HealthCentral says 84 percent will be cut (as it also covers Alexandra), while WellSouth said it was only 54 percent.

WellSouth agreed that rural funding models were out of date. The primary health organisation supports 79 general practices across its network, with 37 classified as rural general. WellSouth confirmed it received $5.48M rural funding this year, which had to be divided equitably.

CEO Andrew Swanson-Dobbs said in working closely with Health NZ recently to understand how rural funding was distributed, some practices stood out, such as HealthCentral, “that needed to be investigated and understood”.

The transitional money had to be put back into the pot and spread across the rest of the rural practices, he said.

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