Now Reading: Child’s cough in New Zealand leads to week-long wait for doctor
-
01
Child’s cough in New Zealand leads to week-long wait for doctor
An Indian woman in New Zealand, Akriti Jaiswal Srivastava, said she could not get a timely doctor's appointment for her child Kevith, who had been coughing for 10 days. She called her…
An Indian woman in New Zealand, Akriti Jaiswal Srivastava, said she could not get a timely doctor's appointment for her child Kevith, who had been coughing for 10 days. She called her local medical centre on a Thursday but was told the earliest slot was the following Wednesday, a week away.
She then took her child to an after-hours clinic but found it was at capacity, with a notice saying no more patients could be taken that night. In a video on Instagram, Srivastava described the difficulty of getting medical care for her sick child and said the experience made her appreciate the ease of accessing doctors in India.
The video prompted others to share similar experiences abroad, with one user recalling a five-and-a-half-hour wait in London. Srivastava said the ordeal highlighted the importance of being prepared for such delays in healthcare systems outside India.
Indian Opinion Analysis
New Zealand's public healthcare system, while free or low-cost for residents, faces chronic shortages of general practitioners, leading to long wait times for non-urgent appointments. This contrasts with India's mixed public-private system where same-day consultations are common in private clinics. For Indian migrants, the adjustment involves understanding triage: in New Zealand, a 10-day cough may be deemed non-urgent unless accompanied by fever or breathing trouble. The next step for Srivastava would be to try an emergency department, where waits can also stretch hours for non-critical cases. Watch for New Zealand's ongoing health workforce crisis: the government has pledged to train more GPs, but targets are years away.
Source: indiatoday.in
This story was synthesised by AI from the source linked above.
