Friday 24 March 2017 10:49am
Professor Gary Hooper conducting orthopaedic surgery.
Professor Gary Hooper was recently interviewed by One News in response to a call for a national survey to identify levels of unmet health needs - a new study suggests nine percent of New Zealanders are not getting the hospital treatment they need.
“It’s confronting for us, and it’s difficult,” says the CDHB orthopaedic surgeon and University of Otago Department Head. “There are only about 30 per cent of people with major spinal disorders that can get through the system, get a first specialist assessment and get surgery."
Under current health-care regimes “patients generally have to be quite disabled before they get accepted for a first-time assessment.”
Read the full article and access video footage on the One News website
