Structure
The Ministry of Health is responsible for the oversight and funding of the twenty District Health Boards (DHBs). These are responsible for organizing healthcare in the district and meeting the standards set by the Ministry of Health. Twenty-one DHBs came into being on January 1, 2001 with Southland and Otago DHBs merging into Southern DHB on 1 May 2010.
The boards for each DHB are elected in elections held every three years, with the exception of one of the eight board members, who is appointed by the Ministry of Health.
The DHBs oversee the forty six Primary Health Organizations established throughout the country. These were first set up in July, 2002, with a mandate to focus on the health of communities. Originally there were 81 of these, but this has been reduced down to 46 in 2008. They are funded by DHBs, and are required to be entirely non-profit, democratic bodies that are responsive to their communities' needs. Almost all New Zealanders are enrolled in a PHO, as there are financial incentives for the patients to become enrolled.
Read more about this topic: Health Care In New Zealand
Famous quotes containing the word structure:
“For the structure that we raise,
Time is with materials filled;
Our to-days and yesterdays
Are the blocks with which we build.”
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1809–1882)
“One theme links together these new proposals for family policy—the idea that the family is exceedingly durable. Changes in structure and function and individual roles are not to be confused with the collapse of the family. Families remain more important in the lives of children than other institutions. Family ties are stronger and more vital than many of us imagine in the perennial atmosphere of crisis surrounding the subject.”
—Joseph Featherstone (20th century)
“I’m a Sunday School teacher, and I’ve always known that the structure of law is founded on the Christian ethic that you shall love the Lord your God and your neighbor as yourself—a very high and perfect standard. We all know the fallibility of man, and the contentions in society, as described by Reinhold Niebuhr and many others, don’t permit us to achieve perfection.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)