Despite surgery readily available to restore both their hearing and the life they once enjoyed, nearly 200 New Zealanders again had their hopes dashed today with no announcement of increased adult cochlear implant funding in the 2019 Budget.
“Moreover, said Southern Cochlear Implant Programme (SCIP) General Manager Neil Heslop, “no further funding means, based on current referral rates, that there could be 500 adults waiting for a cochlear implant in as little as four years.”
“Nothing encompasses ‘wellbeing’ like giving back a New Zealander’s hearing – to escape the silence, loneliness and the profound emotional and mental impact many of our patients know or will soon face,”
A cochlear implant is a surgically-implanted electronic device that restores hearing for those with profound hearing loss.
Yet they can find the money for weidos to have their bits changed just because they have experienced different feelz.
The Government has allocated $3 million to increase access to gender affirming surgery in Budget 2019.
“This initiative improves the health sector’s capability in delivering transgender health care,” it says in the Wellbeing Budget released on Thursday.
“This will be done through funding an increase in the number of gender affirming surgeries, responding to a 50-year waiting list for surgery and growing demand.”
It comes after the Government lifted a cap on the number of gender affirming surgeries in October last year, after reports the waiting list had reached 30 years for some people.
Doesn’t surprise me. The Liarbors are a bunch of eunuch’s, ever since Helun left them leaderless all those years ago.
So much for a “WELL BEING” budget
Calling it the ‘Wellbeing budget’ is a bit of own-goal by the CoL. Supposedly Ardern even majored in communications.
Still, the depth of talent in the CoL is a bit a shallow.
What’s that you said, I can’t hear!
It is INSANE the taxpayer should fork out a dollar for a sex-change operation. Have they not seen Dog Day Afternoon? Go rob a bank, sell meth, or something. Cochlear implants should be a legitimate expense to DHB’s.
No woke credentials in cochlear implants like there is in pandering to LGBT…MNOPQRSTUVWXYZ.
Removing subsidies for cochlear implants for needy kids and give millions to ‘gender re-assignment’ surgery is bloody unbelievable. Not helping childrens’ hearing is cruelty. Deafness is a severe social and learning inhibitor and changes a child’s view of the world, and interferes with social interaction even with close family members. Having lived with a husband who has been severely deaf since birth and only got his first hearing aid at 36 years of age (before he was told he was not a candidate for hearing aids!), I can attest to the difficulties limited hearing causes! Deafness not only affects those with the affliction, it is a ‘wearying journey’ for those living with a deafy and the quirks a lack of hearing causes…
Why sexually confused adults take priority over deaf children is beyond me.
The government has money for cock implants but no money for cochlear implants.
The bit that struck me was the ’50 year’ waiting list, how old are some of theses recipients and ‘really’? If you are 70? what is it going to do?
My old mum was considering one when her hearing almost completely went. She would have had to pay for it herself due to the long waiting list in NZ. Replacement hearing aids seem to have done the trick. My Aunt who is a long time Sydney dweller received a cochlear implant under the Aussie health scheme when she was about 80. It has improved her ability to interact and socialise and it is much more pleasant for everyone around her now that she is not SHOUTING because she couldn’t hear.
The 50 year waiting list was for reassignment surgeries.
When you are the government you have to allocate resourses as best you can. Some times you will not please everybody in what you do. Maybe they will give more money for these ops next year.
You will fit in nicely here if you understand budgeting as well as you just explained it. What’s your take on the economy?
When you are the government you have to allocate resourses as best you can.
What, by prioritising “cocks in a frock” over cochlear implants? I would have thought by any rational measure, cochlear implants would have been far higher priority. Of course, when you major in virtue signalling instead, pandering to the “woke” is far more important.
Hearing is a stronger need than gender identity though, isn’t it? One you literally cannot function without. The other will leave you uncomfortable, but functional.
Uncomfortable?
Sadly cochlear implants are among the long list of essential procedures that are totally ignoring the real well being of so many suffers. Made worse by again siphoning off more funding for race based programs that continue to fail to deliver any worthwhile results. Meanwhile according to some members of the native caucus it still is falling way short of their expectations. They will not be satisfied until they have a totally separate system which we expect they woulds administer even after enough historical result show the folly in such actions. Carving up the health expenditure only creates another layer of bureaucracy that sees less results of discharge of healthier people. All now hidden in a cloak of sanctimony by the remove of any targets to measure value for this ever growing expenditure.
One wonders how many other patients have been dissuaded against seeking surgery on the basis that resulting scar tissue might be as bad or worse than the initial problem? IMO their priorities shown by their Bungled Budget serve only to illustrate they are as misguided as their ability to set meaningful priorities for the economy or even education.
How do the CoL decide on priorty spending? Those groups with woke sensibilities get the cash, or as the saying goes, The squeaky wheel get’s the oil.
How do they decide anything?