Health board delivers cellphone sweetener New chapter for tetraplegic mum
Young rheumatic-fever patients are being offered free mobile phones and credit top-ups as a sweetener to get their monthly penicillin shots.
Monty King-Paaka is one of 78 young patients to sign up for the one-year trial of a free Samsung Galaxy smartphone and monthly $20 top-ups. Patients receive the top-up each time they get their penicillin injections.
King-Paaka, 19, who was without a phone previously, used his smartphone to keep in contact with his healthcare providers as well as set up job interviews.
‘‘The majority of times I was missing my injections but now I turn up, get my injection, get a monthly top-up, so it’s a win-win,’’ he said.
‘‘There’s been a few times when things are going on with me and I can contact doctors and say I need a bit of assistance and that’s when the phone comes into it.’’
Clinical nurse specialist Michelle Morley said the monthly penicillin injections were essential to stop young patients developing rheumatic heart disease.
Injections are usually needed every month for about 10 years.
Almost a quarter of the 14-21 year olds on the Waikato rheumatic fever registry had fallen off the treatment plan. About two-thirds of those who don’t get monthly penicillin injections develop permanent heart valve damage. Corrective surgery costs about $50,000.
Trial project manager Keri Bolton Oetzel said using cellphones as an incentive to help people stick with their treatment potential’’.
‘‘Providing mobile phones is one of the smartest ways to incentivise patients.’’
King-Paaka was diagnosed with rheumatic fever at age nine and later underwent heart surgery. Today he lives an active life and enjoys boxing.
Prepay network Activata supplied the monthly top-ups, while Spark worked with Samsung to provide the smartphones. had ‘‘endless A tetraplegic who lived in a van with her partner and 4-year-old daughter for two months has been offered a home days after her plight was publicised.
Tracey Penney moved into the wheelchair-friendly home yesterday, a week after her story appeared in the Sunday Star-Times.
Despite Housing New Zealand admitting the house was a ‘‘perfect match’’ for Penney, it wasn’t offered to her until several other families had rejected it, a HNZ spokesman confirmed.
Penney’s family began living in their van in December when Work and Income cut their emergency accommodation funding.
A tetraplegic since she was hit by a car as a toddler, 28-year-old Penney said she was overwhelmed by the support she had received since making her story public.
Landlords came forward with temporary housing options, Habitat for Humanity and George Walkers Megastore declared they would fund the family’s furnishing needs, and individuals offered help, clothes, and household items.
‘‘We will never forget that kindness,’’ said Penney.
Work and Income staff told her they would ‘‘sort out and pay for’’ its furnishings if she provided quotes, without making clear she had to repay the money, she said. Had she not checked, she would have ended up deeper in debt.
Penney said living in a house would allow ACC-funded nurses, dieticians, and psychologists to pick up where they had left off with her treatments; she stopped arranging their house calls after becoming homeless.
Surgery to repair the broken metal holding her back bones together is the next hurdle.
‘‘It’s a very risky procedure,’’ she said. ‘‘But I’ve decided it’s a must because the levels of pain I’m getting in this state.’’
She wanted to be as healthy as possible ‘‘for my daughter’s sake’’.
‘‘But I’m also motivated to give others the courage to get up and take action even if they’ve had a firm ‘no’ from the MSD. Especially disabled people – many of whom are struggling and just don’t have the courage or ability to speak for themselves.’’