How Health Service Reform Has Influenced Access Of Organ...

Introduction The public health sector has experienced four major structural reforms. Over the period of reform, the key changes were designed to increase efficiency, improve health outcomes and reduce increasing health expenditures. This assignment will examine how health service reform has influenced access to organ donation. The primary focus will be towards live kidney donation. Further, it will critically provide an analysis to the nature of service delivery in the socio-cultural context that shapes current health policy in New Zealand (NZ). Moreover, the analysis will offer a methodology in executing the strategy. In NZ, the demand dialysis or renal replacement therapy (RRT) and a kidney transplant from a deceased or live donor is†¦show more content†¦Healthcare in NZ prior to 1840 can be best described as rural (Bamford-Wade, Nicholls, Tane, Mitchell, 2010, p. 78). NZ’s healthcare system which was based on the model adopted from the United Kingdom(UK) advanced following the colonial period. Exposure to innovations in surgery and health practices was a result of the First World War and disease outbreaks in the early 20th century. These events led to the centralisation of the structure of healthcare services to what was later recognised as the welfare state. Key challenges Maori and Pacific people have found it particularly difficult to get a transplant and are experiencing a higher burden of having of chronic kidney disease (CKD) and end-stage renal failure (ESRD) (Collins, 2010). ANZDTR reported that at the end of 2014 there were total of 4,306 people being treated for kidney failure: 2,678 people were on dialysis and 1,628 with a transplant: an increase of 4.1 percent for a period of one year (ANZDTR, 2014). The prevalence of dialysis and those that have had a kidney transplant has risen by 250 percent during the last 15 years (Kidney Health New Zealand, 2014). However, the current demand for kidney supply is not meeting the numbers needed as there is currently an excess of 550 patients listed to receive organs and only a 115 have had a transplant from a living or deceased donor in the year 2014 (ANZDTR, 2014). The Ministry of Health (MOH) has devised strategies and initiative to increase live kidney