New Zealand Healthcare for Non-NZ Residents, International Students

I’ve had another encounter with the medical system and thought I’d share some of the travails of accessing healthcare in New Zealand without the benefit of being on the public system. The international student insurance is for all intents and purposes just extended travel insurance. It doesn’t cover preventative care (even though postgraduate students are here for years and likely to need to access some preventative care) nor is it designed to let you see anyone not at the university health center. The dentist I saw last year recommended this doctor to me because he isn’t a New Zealander and is younger – he said he is more in tune with the latest goings-on in healthcare. Well, that didn’t quite turn out to be true, and doctors are still woefully ignorant about nutrition and how it impacts on health, and it is still ridiculous to expect a stranger to figure out what is ailing you in the brief 10-15 minutes you get. You’ve done hours of research and meanwhile they’re looking at a few numbers on a piece of paper as if that’s all they need. But, after a round of test results, I was able to achieve a somewhat satisfactory outcome after a couple tries.

If you aren’t covered by the public New Zealand healthcare system, here are some of the hassles you will have to go through, and some of the prices I’ve paid:

A visit to the doctor’s office as an international student (non-NZ resident): $95.

They said they were not legally allowed to do any lab work on me there, so I had to drive to one of the Canterbury Southern Community Laboratories (SCL) collection centers for bloodwork. I ended up holding up the line for quite a bit because the poor attendant had to look up in the price list all of the different codes and prices for each lab test that the doctor ordered. (There was no receptionist at the center I went to.)

Bloodwork lab tests: ranged from $7 to $44 each. Most were under $20.

These costs actually seemed pretty reasonable considering they are regular prices without insurance, and the results came back very promptly. I was able to get a printout of everything from the doctor’s office without hassle, too. (In the U.S., they always seemed to balk when I wanted my own copies of my own records!)

I also went in to see the nurse instead of the doctor one time, and that visit was less expensive ($31). You can get away with this type of visit in some instances, so you might want to ask.

The staff was nice, but they were clearly not used to dealing with people not on the public system. They seemed afraid to ask me for the $95 every time, whispering among their coworkers to check that it was really that much before getting payment. A couple newspaper articles recently have detailed some disgruntled seniors who can’t even get on the waitlists for some procedures because there aren’t enough specialists in the country, so that is a bit disconcerting. You’d think these countries would be pushing harder for better nutrition and preventative care to avoid having so much demand on services later in life. But no, their grocery stores are full of cheap soda and sugary treats, and students are guzzling energy drinks and Coke like it’s no problem.

Prescription drugs are reasonably priced as well, around $15-25 for a month’s supply. You can only get a few months of medicine at a time, but I’ve already detailed that in an earlier post.

Grading, Seminars, and Dentist Appointment

My cat loves his pet bed and the microwavable warmer. I heat it up in the morning before leaving for school and it is still warm when I get back in the evening. I found a New Zealand supplier (pet.co.nz) so I didn't have to wait.

I really enjoyed Jurassic World and all of the science fiction implications. If we have time while in Sydney, I'd like to see it in 3-D IMAX! The ending is pure awesome.

Grading 30 essays was a huge pain and took me 3 days to complete. The good news is some students did a lot better than last time (not that anything in the class was about improving their writing) and there were fewer instances of plagiarism. However, some students did worse and evidently didn't feel like putting much time into their work. A lot of them clearly struggled with the essay questions, but only a couple sought my help.

Seminars & Conference

I won one of two travel scholarships to one of the Australia conferences I'm going to in a few weeks, so that was great news. They would like to present it to the awardees at the conference banquet as well.

I attended several of the Teaching Week seminars on-campus and learned a lot of good information on diversity, ineffectiveness of the lecture for student engagement and learning, and motivations and profiles of first-year law students. I feel like I'm being stuffed full of information which is all coming together with common themes.

The National Digital Forum held a one-day "barcamp" which is a kind of conference where the people attending decide on the topics they want to see covered, rather than the program being pre-determined. It was an interesting way of organizing. Attendees ranged from library staff, to academics and teachers, to students, to museum and gallery staff. We shared tools and resources, ideas on how to digitize content and why it is so important, ways of helping people learn coding and tech skills, and how to enable partnerships between libraries, museums, and students. I have quickly become a big proponent of Digital Humanities and the importance of turning the critical eye of the humanities to digital content and not letting the small percentage of programmers dominate the tech sector. I am looking forward to the international Digital Humanities conference in one week in Sydney!

Dentist Appointment

We had our first experience with dentistry in New Zealand. Apparently, it is uncommon to have dentists and hygienists work together in the same office. So when you go for a dental checkup and X-rays, this is performed by a dentist in a 15-minute window. To get an actual teeth cleaning, you have to go to a hygienist and pay anywhere from $80-$150 because dental things are not subsidized by the government healthcare system. The dentist said he would really like to have a hygienist in his office, but he has faced resistance from New Zealanders who think that it is a strange concept. 

He was a fairly young guy who has a lot of complaints about the abysmal state of healthcare, especially dentistry, here. He recommended American or British doctors because they will be more thorough and caring (threat of litigation still weighs on American doctors he said). He and his staff were telling me horror stories about their encounters with the healthcare system, like a family member getting metal in an eye that ended up rusting and causing permanent damage, all because the initial doctor said there was nothing in the eye (and the person can't sue in this system). I said they could probably be a millionaire in the U.S.! They also mentioned doctors giving wrong prescriptions and ignoring a woman on the floor in pain who clearly needed emergency medical attention. He was also upset that the government was trying to pretend there were no waiting lists for healthcare by pressuring healthcare providers into essentially hiding their waiting lists. It was all very disappointing to hear.