Up to
150 babies who died in New Zealand last year might well be alive if
they had been born in Sweden, Japan or even the Czech Republic, a
documentary investigation says.
Inside New Zealand: Inside Child Poverty - A Special Report screens on TV3 on Tuesday at 7.30pm.
Filmmaker
Bryan Bruce explores almost 100 years of child welfare in New Zealand
and reveals how child health has deteriorated in recent years.
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A recent report found more than half of the 200,000 children living in poverty in New Zealand are Maori or Pacific Island.
Bruce
begins his journey in East Porirua - just 15km from Parliament - it has
the highest rate of rheumatic fever in the country - a disease of
poverty.
He found skin infections and respiratory illnesses are rife.
"And
it's not because their parents don't care. They do. They're just poor.
Typically they can't afford heating so they huddle together in one room
and in large families that's how diseases such as tuberculosis,
meningitis and rheumatic fever are spread."
Bruce travels to Sweden, which is number two in the OECD for child wellbeing. New Zealand is now ranked 28th out of 30.
"What
I discovered in Sweden is that we can have a fair market economy - one
in which people can still get rich but not at the expense of our
children's health."
New Zealand Ministry of Health figures show
that 24,588 surgical procedures were performed on children under 14 last
year at a cost of $142 million.
If half of these were
preventable, the $71 million saved could pay for every child under 14 to
see a GP four times a year, Bruce says.
"The money's already
there. We just have to spend smarter," he says. "A nation with poor
children is a poor excuse for a nation."
NZN