With private insurance you have enforceable rights. But this Queensland kid was told to go away and die until publicity got the politicians involved

Fifteen-year-old diabetic Cruze Poupouare has been told there's no place for him at Queensland's largest clinic for teenage sufferers of the disease because of a funding crisis. His mother, Doreen Poupouare, was fuming yesterday that money had been put ahead of her son's welfare. But Queensland Health pledged last night to help Cruze. Southern area health services general manager Terry Mehan told The Courier-Mail: "We will deal with this."

Mrs Poupouare was told on March 15 by the Mater Hospital's Adolescents with Diabetes Clinic that it was unable to take on Cruze - even though he had been referred there by his GP. The young man has battled Type 1 diabetes since he was a baby, and needs twice-daily injections of insulin. The Mater's child diabetes clinics were "booked beyond a level we consider critical in order to offer you safe and effective care", Mrs Poupouare was told. The letter to her continued: "Until we can obtain further government funding to improve our significantly diminished staffing levels, we are unable to accept any new patient referrals. "I do appreciate the significance of this dilemma and that it leaves you and your child without specialist care."

An angry Ms Poupouare, a credit manager from Camira, west of Brisbane, said last night that she was "gutted" by the rejection. "I have never had treatment like this before . . . to be told you can't be seen at a hospital because of funding issues," she said. Recently arrived from New Zealand with Cruze and his sister, Alycia, 12, Ms Poupouare, 44, said she would have to consider returning there with her family. Their private health fund in New Zealand would not cover her son in Australia, and no insurer here would cover his existing condition , she said.

Mater Health Services said a doubling in four years of Type 1 diabetes patients, combined with the rising incidence of the lifestyle-related Type 2 form of the disease among overweight children, meant the adolescents clinic could not treat everyone referred to it. A submission had been lodged with Queensland Health to hire more staff at the clinic, Mater Health Services said in a statement.

But Mr Mehan said Queensland Health had given the hospital group $206 million in a block grant this year, up from $191 million, and it had been up to it how to allocate the bulk of the funding. The Department had not been aware of Cruze's plight until yesterday, Mr Mehan said. State Liberal leader Bob Quinn said Cruze's plight "puts another human face" to Queensland's public health crisis.

Chief executive of the Queensland branch of Diabetes Australia Joe Tooma said it was disappointing that "we have got to the point where an important facility for treating children can't carry the load put on it". An estimated 21,000 people have Type 1 diabetes in Queensland, about 8 per cent of whom are aged under 17. The case load of the adolescents clinic at the Mater has increased from 20 to 200 patients in the past decade.

Source

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