Grey Power delegates visiting Parliament last month pounded home health concerns to Ministers from several parties.
On speaking with Laura McClure, ACT spokesperson on social development for seniors, Grey Power president, Gayle Chambers and national secretary Joe Millar addressed the shingles vaccination programme. This issue was also raised at the Federation’s parliamentary visit in December 2024.
Unable to give any update on the issue, Ms McClure could only indicate that the responsibility for Pharmac was with Todd Stephenson, (party spokesperson on health), but that she would appraise the situation.
Mrs Chambers advised that a shingles vaccine awareness campaign was being launched on February 24 (2025), by GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) which manufactures the vaccine. The concern was that people over the age of 65 were ineligible for the vaccine subsidy.
She said this was worrying because there were still incidents of people being hospitalised with shingles and suffering ongoing effects, particularly those 70 years and over.
This was an added cost on the health system which could well be prevented if a subsidised vaccine was available to everyone, 65 years and beyond, she said.
As Ms McClure is also responsible for speaking on a wide number of health issues including ACC, Mrs Chambers discussed what appears to be a change of ACC focus when it comes to some claims by seniors.
She said in some cases seniors were are not being referred to ACC by their doctors due to a perception they will have an underlying condition and therefore be ineligible for ACC. She pointed out this may, in fact, not be the case.
The cost of attending the ACC ‘falls’ prevention initiative, Steady As You Go (SAGO) classes was also discussed.
Despite the initiative being funded by ACC, participants still have to pay between $5.00 and $8.00 per class which Grey Power says many can ill afford. This meant some don’t attend as often as they should.
Grey Power wants this initiative to be fully funded as statistics prove that the elderly are more susceptible to falls so it would benefit ACC for seniors to take part in classes.
