Two years after it was announced that all New Zealanders would have the same access to cataract surgery — it hasn’t happened yet for almost half the country.
In 2023, then Health Minister Ayesha Verrall announced the points required across the country for patients to get a cataracts operation would be set at 46 for everyone.
The points referred to the Clinical Priority Assessment criteria, or CPAC score — a legacy of district health boards, determining who automatically went on the waitlist for elective surgeries.
Information released under the Official Information Act showed eight of 20 regions still hadn’t lowered their points threshold for cataract surgery, making it harder to access the operation.
In the West Coast, it was set at 48 points — whereas, in Taranaki, Waikato, Bay of Plenty and South Canterbury it was 50. In Lakes, it was 54, in Canterbury it was 55 and in Southern, 61.
Patient: ‘It’s not rocket science’
A patient from Canterbury who didn’t want to be named said her cataracts got so bad she had to leave her job because she couldn’t drive at night. Despite that, she didn’t qualify for surgery.
“I was told that I simply wasn’t bad enough. That I didn’t have enough points in their system,” she said. Canterbury was one of the regions where the thresholds still hadn’t changed.
She paid around $6000 to go private and had surgery earlier this month.
The woman says it was very unfair that people didn’t get the access to care and had a message for politicians: “You’ve had long enough to sort it out, it’s not rocket science people.”
Initially in 2023 at the time of the announcement by the previous government, more than $100m was set aside to help broaden access to cataract surgery.
Health New Zealand’s lead on planned care Dr Derek Sherwood said: “Initially, the funding for the cataract surgery was ring-fenced and that led to a big improvement.”
But last year, that changed with the regions deciding when and if to fund the threshold changes.
“We haven’t got a definite date for that but we’d be hoping that over the next year there’d be further progress towards a standard threshold for access for cataract surgery,” Sherwood said.
Yesterday morning, it appeared Prime Minister Christopher Luxon wasn’t fully briefed on the delay, saying: “If I take cataracts… I know for now that, actually, whether you’re in Whangarei or in Southland, it’s one national threshold, one national standard.”
But Southland, in particular, was one of the regions where the threshold had not yet been changed.
However, Luxon said his Government was committed to reducing the postcode lottery and changing how patients were prioritised. “The better way is to get one standard across the country,” he said.
On Sunday, 1News revealed how entrenched the points system remained despite the creation of Health New Zealand in 2022. For some operations, patients in one area would need 10 points, whereas patients in another area needed 75.
The number of points a patient needs to qualify for treatment varies widely across the country. (Source: Breakfast)
Optometrist Adele Jefferies says it was disappointing but not surprising that the cataracts thresholds hadn’t all been changed. “It comes down to the specialists that we’ve got; it comes down to the surgical space we’ve got”.
Many argued that, without extra staff and resources, changing the CPAC thresholds wouldn’t have any material impact.
“The advantage of reducing the points from, example, the 61 to 46 does mean they get on the wait list sooner, but it does also mean that the wait list has increased,” Jefferies said.
Health New Zealand said it was working through the backlog of patients and the number of people on the waiting list had reduced by 16% this year.
