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.

Cost of Living as International PhD Student in New Zealand

At the end of the year, it seemed right to do an overview of the fixed cost of living as an international PhD student in New Zealand, now that there is over a year's worth of data. No warehouse stores or coupons, so it is more difficult to get a bargain. Costs are annual unless stated otherwise and in NZ dollars.

School
$7,200 Postgraduate PhD tuition and admin fees

Medical
$600 - Medical insurance for university international students
(basically equivalent to travel insurance)
$58 - Doctor's visit at university health center
$25 - Dentist visit (10-minute cleaning and X-rays) subsidized by university
(normally ~$80)
$80 - Hygienist visit (30-minute cleaning) at separate location
$22 - 3 months of generic drug at university pharmacy
(with prescription, not covered by ins.)
$36 - 6 months of oral contraception at university pharmacy
(with prescription, not covered by ins.)
$1/pill - most other medicines at any pharmacy (e.g. pain relief, allergy)

Vehicle
$200 - Annual government car registration
$115 - AA car insurance, Third Party policy (not required but good to have)
$60 - AA membership
$2,000 - Gas costs (~$70-100 per fillup with older car) with two roadtrips around islands

Utilities
$19,240 - Rent ($370/week in lower-income neighborhood)
$8,000 - Groceries and household supplies ($120/week for low-carb groceries for two)
$2,000 - Electricity costs ($150/month summer, $300/month winter)
(being away during weekdays)
$900 - Internet, unlimited data, slow speeds ($75/month)
$265 - Contents/renters insurance
$240 - Cell phone plan, 500MB data, unlimited texting ($20 topup/month)

Rigid Systems

Health

I received a care package from home (yay Chex Mix!), but unfortunately it was intercepted by MedSafe and they confiscated some of the supplements inside because New Zealand's nanny-state health system requires a prescription for them. In the U.S., melatonin is a sleep aid and sold as a supplement. The letter gives you 30 days to get a legitimate prescription from a doctor (and if you have more than a 3-month supply, the doctor has to take anything over 3 months' worth and dole them out to you gradually) or they destroy them. The letter tries to convince you how bad it is to order drugs online because they could be harmful. I really don't like the health care system here. Also just found out that the junky student health insurance they sell us is really only intended as a travel insurance, so that's why it doesn't cover anything. The government discontinued students getting onto the good health insurance in 2011 apparently.

My Presentations

I had my one-year confirmation oral presentation with my supervisors, a moderator from the department, and a friend who wanted to come along. I'm glad she did because then I could complain about it afterward with someone who had been there. It wasn't too bad, but I get frustrated at constantly being told I haven't include this, that, and the other French theorist for some point, and how the paper won't pass if I don't include them. Research has gotten so bogged down in these theory fads; it used to be psychoanalysis, but of course that went out of vogue. Now it's poststructuralism, but that too will pass eventually. It seems to become more about pleasing others than making a good, original contribution to the field that is accessible to not just a minority.

One of my former students invited me to give a lecture to the public downtown for International Parking Day, where people buy a parking spot and protest cities being made for cars instead of people by setting up alternate things in the parking spot (like a living room set or a table with leaflets and hands-on activities). There weren't too many passers-by in the early afternoon, but I still got a chance to practice presenting and time myself on my Digital Humanities presentations. We had some good conversations before and after about education and travel, so it was a nice experience.

Got to meet the cutest white German Shepherd walking by!

 Others' Presentations

There continue to be interesting presentations that fill me up with all kinds of ideas. It's what I am enjoying most about being back in school. One of the Digital Humanities ones was on the shift from product-based capitalism to financial capitalism where people make money off of money and digital things like data. Basically, we're giving away our data for free when we use social media and other apps that harvest our data and sell it to advertisers. It's digital sharecropping and we should be cautious about further enriching the .0001% (Google, Facebook, etc.). Hard to disagree that we're being taken advantage of.

Peter Singer, who helped start the animal rights movement in the 70s, was in town speaking on effective altruism, utilitarianism, and rationalism. He believes that people should give their money away to charities and places where it will make the most impact, so like to African charities that provide very low-cost mosquito nets to combat malaria. He says saving more people is better than saving fewer, even if that means not helping people in your community because the money will make more of a difference to really impoverished people. He specifically called out things like walk-a-thons that require a lot of people's time that might be better spent working and earning money that could then be given away. But some people do things for the psychological benefit and so aren't being as altruistic as they could be. It was an intriguing talk with some good audience questions afterward.

An Emeritus Professor of Political Science gave a lecture on throwing out the political science canon (Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau) because it limits people's perspectives and the ability to make new connections. He said there is no reason we need to keep reading these men's works as if they are the only way of looking at political issues and motivations. I had to agree with him, more in the context of my own field (see above on my confirmation) where a handful of theorists now dominate the perspective one can take when critically examining literature. But the only reason he can say this is because he's retired and has the freedom to challenge the canon.

Diane Foreman is one of the most successful women in the Asia-Pacific region, and the university's entrepreneurship program invited her to give a talk on her successful business career. I had just read about her in a magazine my friend gave to me so some of the information was repeated, but it was cool to hear about some of her business experiences and how she thinks of herself as a capitalist feminist. She believes in treating her employees well and incentivizing them to do better, which has been missing in a lot of my former workplaces. She also talked about the issue with selling time, a point raised in the magazine article. Kids are encouraged to grow up and enter the professions: doctor, lawyer, accountant, etc. But the problem with these pathways is that you can only make money by selling your time. You might bill out at $1,000 an hour, but you aren't making money without billable hours. As a business owner, though, you can make money without having to physically be at your business. You aren't at the mercy of needing others to pay you for your time. She said we should be encouraging kids who have the entrepreneurial spirit to become business owners. I would add that we should be teaching basic business and financial skills to everyone, so even those with Art and Science backgrounds can go into business if they desire. 

The second annual university Feminist Society day conference went well, and I learned some interesting things, including some scary facts about how radicalization is affecting kids and women in the Middle East. There are no easy answers.

 Education

My friend recommended a TV show where several Chinese teachers go to a British school and teach the kids in the "Chinese method" for 3 weeks and see if it is more effective than the British method of teaching. He thought I would be against the Chinese method because it is so rigid and involves 10-12 hours of school per day, but I told him that I had a similarly rigid method of teaching at some points in my education and am all for it. I didn't know how many hours Chinese kids go to school though. He said in junior high and onward, they are constantly at school or at home studying; they have very little free time. Everything is geared toward passing exams to get into a good college. [The BBC documentary was called Are Our Kids Tough Enough? I watched it on YouTube, but it has since been removed for copyright complaints from BBC. It might be available elsewhere.]

Speaking of education, the more I learn about the NCEA high school education system here, the more concerned I am for this country. I had to help a student who is constantly being marked down for his bad grammar and punctuation and said he has a tendency to write long sentences that are incorrect; when I asked him if he knew how sentences work (with a subject and verb and stuff like that), he gave me the saddest face and shook his head and said no, he didn't. Where do you even go with that? It's incredibly difficult to try to explain why something is grammatically incorrect if they don't know the parts of speech and how sentences fit together with punctuation. I learned from the Chinese vs. British show that the UK stopped teaching grammar in the 60s, so I assume that carried over to New Zealand as well. I know some schools still do it, but it's probably only the good ones. I'm hoping the U.S. hasn't given up on grammar; I know they were still teaching it when I went through.

When students here try to apply to PhD programs in the U.S., they are completely intimidated by the GRE tests since they don't have to take anything like the SAT or ACT to get into college. If they don't pass their high school classes here, they can wait until they turn 20 and get in without any requirement. And since there are a lot fewer requirements for what they take in high school, the last time they took a math class might have been junior high! I would venture the rate of doing well on those kinds of tests is not very high; they're hard enough for those of us who've been conditioned to the standardized test system!

Spring is finally coming!

Giving and Gaining Knowledge

I have really been soaking up the knowledge recently at several lectures on campus:

The Canterbury Historical Society had one on economic history in the 20th century (also known as, What happened in the 1980s?!). It might not have interested me a decade ago, but being a worker and investor now makes me quite interested in the economy and how/why things work like they do.

The university and local writers' festival live-streamed the How To Be A Feminist panel from the Sydney Opera House, which included top women from Australia, Canada, and the U.S., including Germaine Greer. Then afterward was a local panel from Christchurch. The lecture hall was packed and had a broad range of ages. It was enlightening to see what the current trends and issues are in contemporary feminist activism.

The public What If lecture series had its first one of 2015 as What If All Women Everywhere Were Treated the Same As Men? given by a professor of law who is French but also now a New Zealand citizen. She mentioned the disappointment in finding that most New Zealanders she encountered weren't very interested in pursuing gender equality, like doing something about the gender pay gap.
Most of the information I already knew, but she gave a lot of updated statistics. On average, women in NZ spend 4 hours and 20 minutes doing unpaid work, while men spend 2 hours and 32 minutes. Only 15% of professors (highest level of academic teacher in their system) are women, begging the question of where are all of the women completing MAs and PhDs going. Top law firms in Auckland (biggest city in NZ) have 19% female partners. It takes 24 years on average for a woman to become a CEO, while it takes 15 years for a man.

The Critical Animal Studies series featured a Russian academic who presented on the Artist as Dog in Russia. There's a famous Russian artist -- Oleg Kulik -- who puts on a collar and chain and pretends to be a dog in various cities around the world, highlighting the lack of freedom for artists in Russia. She also talked about how the dog is portrayed in literature and Pavlov's treatment of dogs in his experiments.

The Canterbury Women's Club postgraduate networking group that I have been pushing to get underway had its first meeting and was quite well-attended. I enjoyed hearing what other people are researching, and the main speaker is doing cutting-edge research on bloodstain analysis in relation to forensic science. Apparently, the models out there only look at blood dripping downward and not all of the splatter that travels in arcs. She uses 3-D cameras and physics and also does educational outreach to encourage kids to see the practical applications of studying math and science in school.

We went to a poetry reading on campus. It has been a long time since I went to one of those, and it felt very hippie but was quite enjoyable. Hearing people perform their poetry makes it come alive so much more than reading it on a page.

Meanwhile, by the third week of tutorials my nervousness is almost dissipated which is a relief. We discussed The Time Machine and Heart of Darkness and it surprised me how these turn-of-the-century novels have a lot of similar issues and themes that people are wrestling with today (benefits and downsides of science and progress, racism, class-ism, sexism, ills of capitalism). I guess that's why they're considered literature and still worth reading. In my other one-on-one tutoring job, I am remembering how much I enjoy it and seeing the lightbulbs go on as I explain concepts and how to tackle assignments. So far, the students have been very appreciative of assistance.

In other news, I got around to booking accommodation for our upcoming North Island trip with a mix of hostels and Airbnb. You get so much more for your money with these places because you have access to free wi-fi and a kitchen. I'm not looking forward to meal-planning for two weeks this time, but it's necessary. We had the earthquake insurance inspectors here again to check something that wasn't covered in their last visit. Apparently they are having to make the decision whether to try to repair the house or rebuild. Our landowners said not to worry and that it wouldn't affect us, but of course with all the trouble it took to find housing here, I don’t really believe that. Last week we went for a walk in the "red zone" near us where the houses are all gone and nature is quickly reclaiming everything. It is a bit eerie, especially how fast plants take over.

Jobs, Parties, Movie, and Meds

Jobs

We joined the ranks of the workforce this week, having both been accepted to be notetakers for the disability center on-campus. This is nice because you get to sit through a class in your field and take notes for students who are otherwise unable to take their notes. You get to learn and get paid for it. Not too bad a deal. We had to apply for an IRD (Internal Revenue Department) number at the post office, and it was a surprisingly easy task. The form was two pages long and just required copies of our passport and student ID. The lady processed the forms, gave us a receipt, and said to expect our numbers in the mail in about a week. What won't be so simple is figuring out all the tax stuff, but we'll just have to wait until the end of their year (March 30) to deal with that.

School

There were two holiday parties, one with some of the arts college's departments and the other with a small group of postgrads. Unfortunately, the first party suffered from the typical clique problem where each department's people just sat at their own table and didn't interact or leave room for anyone else. The second party was at a vegetarian restaurant which suffered from the dinner party problem where you may or may not be seated next to interesting people, and you never get the chance to talk to anyone from the other end of the table. Perhaps because the university has a small but growing animal studies research group, we have been encountering a large proportion of people working on animal rights-related topics and bringing them up in conversation. One lady was against the concept of pets and another was a vet who believed all vets should be vegans. I'll admit, hearing these new points of view has made me think more about humans and their relationships with animals than I did before.

With the new year just around the corner, I decided to ask the head of school for a meeting to discuss some of my frustrations at the lack of communication and events for postgrads in my department and others in the arts. This was the professor I met the first week I arrived whom I knew it would be advantageous to have talked with, and I was right. I felt comfortable going to him and we had a great meeting going over my concerns and coming up with solutions. As I suspected, he already knew a lot of what I was saying was happening, but it took someone speaking up about it to put it back as a priority on his huge to-do list to revitalize the school. I'm encouraged that the next few years will see the build-up of a strong postgrad community that supports us and reflects well on the school.

Home

We saw our first movie here, The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies, which came out ahead of the U.S. release for a change. On this side of town, the movie theater is actually reasonably priced at $10 a ticket, and the theater was very nice with stadium, comfortable plush seating. The weird thing was they have assigned seats - which we didn't realize - and someone came in and made us move because we were in their seats. This system makes sense to give an incentive to buy tickets in advance online so you can get the best seats, but it was ridiculous in the huge theater to have all of us bunched up together in the middle. We moved over one after the movie started to avoid a smelly guy - it's called a buffer seat people!

At the house, we had another visit by insurance inspectors. After about half an hour of walking around and making notes, one of them showed up on the porch wearing a haz-mat suit and told us that we should stay out of the house for the next hour while they collected samples from walls and ceilings. We said we really didn't want to leave for an hour, so they compromised and worked on one side of the house at a time with a door shut. (Hopefully they don't find anything hazardous!) So now there are masking-taped-up patches all over, as well as numbers in Sharpies so they can match photos to rooms. No care taken to make the holes in inconspicuous places - I don't think this would fly in the U.S.

generic aspirin was $2.59 for 20 300mg pills

brand-name naproxen sodium (Aleve) was $14.99 for 12 275mg pills 

We bought a 32" LCD TV at a garage sale for $100 which was a really good deal. Americans just need more than 1 television, I guess. A gift of fruit mince pies was given to us, and though I tried the raisin and apple-filled treats, they are just too sweet and weird tasting for my palate. I think you have to have grown up on them. Having to buy medicine for D since his back went out, I was reminded how expensive medicine is here and how I should have brought more with and wish someone had told me how crazy the prices are for even regular stuff like pain relief. Thankfully there are generic versions of aspirin and ibuprofen, but most other medicines and anything name-brand is at least $1 or more per pill.

Although not many people decorate for Christmas, there is a website where people can put their address if they do put up lights and want others to come see them. We drove about 10 minutes to a suburb with a lot of postings and saw several really nicely decorated houses. A couple even had signs saying come on in and see more, so we stopped at one and had a nice walk around the house full of lights, trees, ornaments, and other decorations. Definitely made me sad we couldn't bring any of our decorations with!

Buying a Car

Yes, we've only lasted 2 weeks before buying a car. But we bought a car! First one we've bought on our own. Fingers crossed that it turns out okay.

It was one of those butterfly effect things - we went to New World yesterday to pick up milk and I spotted an ad/posting board by the front door and checked it out. There was an ad for a Subaru station wagon for sale from someone who was leaving NZ soon. The price had been crossed out with another price hand-written in and then (negotiable) written next to that. So I smelled some desperation. I thought it wouldn't hurt to look at it, so I texted the number and we set up a time for her to drive it by in the morning. 

I did some research online for tips on buying and made sure it was priced around its Kelley Blue Book value and would suit our needs. Then I had three nightmares about meeting three different weird people selling their car, so woke up feeling like I'd already lived through the ordeal three times. Not so fun. She drove up and we asked questions about its history and test-drove it around the block. New Zealand requires a Warrant of Fitness (WOF) every 6 months for older vehicles so there's less of a chance that it could be a complete mess since it just had its WOF done. I haggled her down a little on the price which made me happy and we were off to the bank to get the cash and then the post office to change the registration. That's right - you just pop into the local post office, fill out 2 simple forms, send one off to the national vehicle licensing office, and the other is processed right there. Luckily I thought to bring my passport with me which they needed for ID. 

New Zealand doesn't require you to buy car insurance since it has a national insurance policy of sorts, but it is recommended that you buy third-party insurance which covers damage to the other person's car if you hit them or in uninsured driver scenarios. After driving the seller out aways back to the farm where she was staying/working(?) and driving to the cattery to check on our cat, we went to the AA office (just two A's here!) and purchased third-party insurance. It was only $137 since the car is pretty old and it's not covering replacement of it. We found out we can use our foreign driver's licenses for a year, so no need to buy a local license as of yet. We bought a membership as well (similar to AAA again) in case the car breaks down and we need some help. Nice to have in a pinch.

D did a good job of driving it all around for the first part of the day. Then I drove it out to an apartment viewing...and while turning right onto a side street from the main road accidentally went into the right lane!! There were a lot of pedestrians on the street corner and lots of traffic, so I was a bit under pressure, as well as a lone pedestrian in the median on the side street, and boy was he surprised to see me going the wrong way! D was raising his voice in exasperation and I hurriedly pulled back into the left lane shortly. Man, with no cars there, it felt so natural. Hopefully I will get the hang of it with practice - it definitely is strange having most of the car to the left of you while you're driving.

Ultimately, we decided to get a car for the reasons cited by other travelers online - New Zealand is really best explored with a car because otherwise you are stuck to buses and trains which restrict your travel to the places you want to go significantly. The Metro bus is limited to the main parts of the city and not super cheap - $2.50 per trip with a Metro card. While gas is around $8/gallon, now we can drive to some of the nearby natural attractions at our own pace and eventually go around the island when the summer comes. Let's hope this Subaru lives up to its brand and lasts.