Dying on a Budget

How New Zealand Perfected the Art of Humane Neglect

In this proud little nation of number-eight-wire ingenuity and world-class kindness, we’ve finally done it, we’ve managed to monetise dying. Not for profit, mind you. No, that would be gauche. We’ve done it for savings.

Hospice care in New Zealand, once a shining example of compassion, is now just another line item on a budget spreadsheet. It costs $226 million a year to care for our dying with dignity, a figure the government meets with a thrillingly inadequate $114 million. The remaining $112 million? Don’t worry, folks. That’s covered by your sausage sizzles, fun runs and the occasional raffle basket stuffed with supermarket wine and expired chutney.

Because nothing says “we value your final days” like sending nurses out to beg for loose change outside Bunnings.

But why stop there? Let’s start charging patients per tearful goodbye. Maybe a surcharge for morphine that actually works and families can chip in for the luxury of clean linen and someone who looks them in the eye when they say, “We’re doing everything we can.”

The real masterstroke is how we’ve sold this cruelty to ourselves as pragmatism. “Tough choices,” they call it. “Fiscal responsibility.” After all, how dare the dying compete with roads, tax cuts and PR campaigns about how “caring” we are?

And what a delightfully bipartisan disaster this has been. No government, red or blue, seems eager to take full responsibility for caring for people whose only remaining demand is a dignified end. Perhaps because dying doesn’t vote and terminal illness rarely writes angry letters to MPs.

Hospices are now cutting beds, freezing staff hires and rationing admissions, all while demand is expected to double in 20 years. If that doesn’t warm your neoliberal heart, nothing will.

But let’s be fair. It’s not just government neglect, it’s our own polished indifference too. We love to “raise awareness,” but ask most New Zealanders what a hospice actually does and you’ll be met with vague hand gestures and a quick change of subject.

In the end, maybe that’s the most honest part of this whole debacle - we don’t want to look at death, so we’ve made it invisible. Tucked away. Quiet. Underfunded.

Because in New Zealand, we believe in dying well - just not enough to pay for it.

STOP PRESS!!

MINISTRY OF WELLBEING OUTCOMES AND FISCAL EFFICIENCY
Media Statement – For Immediate Dissemination
Transforming End-of-Life Pathways Through Sustainable Compassion Initiatives

The Government today proudly announced the commencement of a bold new strategy to recalibrate the Compassion Delivery Model (CDM) across Aotearoa's Transitional Life Phase (TLP) sector, formerly known as “hospice care.”

Minister for Outcomes-Based Equity, Brook-Lyn Vann-Fiscal, hailed the shift as a “quantum leap in cross-sectoral dignity innovation.”

“Through targeted underfunding and community-led monetisation, we’re empowering everyday New Zealanders to take ownership of their loved ones’ final moments,” said Minister Vann-Fiscal. “This is about democratising death.”

Under the new framework, hospices will operate within a Dynamic Resource Scarcity Model (DRSM), fostering agility, stakeholder resilience and real-time gratitude generation. Co-investment will remain core, with government contributing up to 50% and the remainder harvested via BBQ-based philanthropy and voluntary cake-based procurement drives.

“We're proud to have reimagined traditional notions of care,” said Deputy Associate Strategy Lead for Integrated Expiry Facilitation, Corey Blurden. “In a time of fiscal headwinds, every death must carry its own weight.”

The Government is also launching the “Pay It Forward, Pass It On” initiative, encouraging terminal patients to leave behind pre-authorised Direct Debits to ensure continuity of service for the next cohort of grateful leavers.

When asked about growing service gaps and staff burnout, Minister Vann-Fiscal assured New Zealanders that the Ministry is “exploring a future-focused pilot utilising AI-generated bedside empathy and a drone-enabled Last Hug Delivery System by 2028.”

Stakeholders are encouraged to celebrate this sectoral evolution with an official government-endorsed “Celebration of Care Pathway Devolution” event, complete with branded tote bags and free commemorative tissues (limit one per family).

“Death is no longer a burden,” said the Minister. “It’s an opportunity for agile communities to thrive.”

For media inquiries, please contact:
Strategic Liaison Lead – Legacy Efficiencies Division
caringstrategy@govt.example.nz

A HOSPICE FAMILY SPEAKS!!!

To the Editor,

We weren’t supposed to write this letter. We were supposed to be busy with the business of saying goodbye. Quiet days. Shared memories. The occasional laugh. Tears, too, but the good kind. The kind you earn after a life fully lived.

Instead, we’ve spent our final weeks watching the nurses who care for us juggle impossible rosters, while administrators apologise (again) that there’s no funding for the extra support we need. That the doctor had to leave early. That the volunteer couldn’t stay longer. That there’s a waiting list of other dying people and we should be grateful we got a bed at all.

We are grateful. Painfully so. The care here is extraordinary, not because of the system, but in spite of it. These are people who do impossible work with dwindling resources, warm smiles and soft hands. They hold our fears. They hold our hands. They hold the line.

And they shouldn’t have to beg for the privilege.

We’ve heard the phrase “sustainable funding model” tossed around like confetti at a wedding no one wants to attend. We’ve seen ministers frown gravely into cameras while assuring the public that “every New Zealander deserves to die with dignity.” Then they slash budgets and suggest we run another bake sale.

This is not dignity. This is slow abandonment, with a ribbon tied on top.

So here’s our ask - not for us, but for those still waiting, still hoping, still breathing. Fund hospice care properly. Fully. Generously. Because a country that can’t care for its dying, doesn’t deserve to call itself compassionate.

Sincerely,
Margaret (a grateful hospice patient)
and Tom, Kate and little Jamie — her family, advocates and cake-stall veterans.

A HOSPICE PATIENT SPEAKS!!!

To the Editor,

I’m writing this from my hospice bed. I’m dying, but don’t worry, this isn’t a sad letter. I’ve had a good life, a full life and the people here are doing their absolute best to make sure I have a gentle end.

But I need to say something and I’d like it printed before I go.

Hospice care in this country is extraordinary. It’s also astonishingly underfunded. The nurses apologise when they can’t sit longer. The doctor looks like she hasn’t slept in days. The volunteers bring flowers, biscuits and a brave face. They all carry too much. They all give too much and the government gives too little.

I don’t want to die knowing the people who made this place feel like home have to fight every year just to keep the lights on. That the next patient might not get a bed. That we’ve normalised the idea of dying people being a “funding shortfall.”

This isn’t how a caring society behaves.

So please, to those in power, stop smiling into cameras and start signing cheques and to everyone else. If you’ve got a voice, now’s the time to use it.

Warmly,
Stephen R. (aged 74, still here, for now)

A LETTER FROM A DECEASED PATIENT’S FAMILY!!!

To the Editor,

Our mum died last Tuesday. Peacefully, in the arms of people who treated her like she was still a person, not just a patient. We want to say thank you to the staff at the hospice - angels in cardigans, every one of them.

But we also want to say this - they shouldn’t have had to work under such pressure.

The nurse who stayed late on her own time. The doctor who apologised for delays she didn’t cause. The cleaner who squeezed our hands and told us she wished she could do more. They did more, more than anyone should be expected to do when the government only pays for half the care and leaves the rest to sausage sizzles and “community generosity.”

It is an obscenity that in a country as wealthy as ours, the right to die with dignity depends on the tenacity of charity volunteers.

We buried our mother with grace. The people who made that possible are heroes. But the system? It’s a disgrace.

Yours in grief and gratitude,
Carla, Mark and Jessie W.
(Waikato)