What a Week (From Hell)

Some weeks feel like a test of endurance. This one could have qualified for the decathlon.

Monday: I had an appointment with the Eye Service at Outpatients, where I was told that despite months of being assured I qualified for publicly funded cataract surgery, I no longer do. The reason? The other eye is “too good.” Never mind that I have multiple sclerosis–related optic neuritis in the same eye as the cataract, making it feel like walking through life with a lens half-smeared in Vaseline that no prescription eyewear can correct.

What makes it worse is that the criteria for cataract surgery isn’t even consistent across the country. The threshold was lowered in 2023, but not all “Health Boards” (as we used to call them) are complying. Canterbury, it seems, is one of them. It’s effectively a postcode lottery — your access to treatment depends on where you live, not how much you need it. The imbalance between my eyes — one blurred and one sharp — plays havoc with my depth perception and balance. It’s the reason I sometimes fall over (and no, before anyone asks, it’s nothing to do with alcohol), although I must admit the need for a stiff drink has become more urgent after this week’s events.

Tuesday: MSD finally processed my Disability Allowance. Progress! Except it came to the princely sum of $34.10 per week. It barely covers the cost of parking at the hospital, but technically it’s “assistance.”

Wednesday: Our quiz team, The Usual Suspects, came second to last. I’ll say no more.

Thursday: Inland Revenue phoned asking for more bank statements and a spreadsheet of my income and expenses. Anyone who knows me will know that I can handle a spreadsheet — it’s practically my love language — but how many people in my position could realistically do that? Somewhere between “explain the surplus” and “please attach proof,” I completely lost it. I shouted, hung up, cried, apologised later, and then did what any rational person pushed past their limits would do — I wrote to the Leader of the Opposition.

To their credit, Chris Hipkins’ office responded quickly and kindly, and the letter’s now been passed to Labour’s Disability Issues spokesperson, Priyanca Radhakrishnan. I’ll write to the Ministers holding the relevant portfolios later because, to be honest, I think I might have more success making my feelings known to the Opposition.

Underpinning all of this is the infamous Household Expenditure Guide — the Golden Guide by which IRD fantasises about the cost of modern living: food, power, petrol, and the odd luxury like breathing. According to its sacred formulas, I apparently have a “surplus.” If you squint hard enough at a spreadsheet, earning just over a thousand dollars a fortnight and paying $800 of that in rent can magically produce spare cash. It’s a guide so out of touch it feels like it was written when a loaf of bread cost six shillings and petrol was sold by the gallon.

Between IRD’s surplus fantasies, MSD’s $34.10, and a health system that decides your eligibility for surgery based on your good eye rather than your bad one, it’s been a week that really makes you wonder what kind of country we’ve become.

Still, there’s a strange comfort in small acts of order — like formatting cells and balancing columns — when the systems around you have clearly lost the plot. Persistence, humour, and a well-structured spreadsheet might not fix everything, but they’re keeping me sane.

I knew things would get a bit tricky once I turned 65 and my income protection insurance — which effectively saved the government thousands in benefit payments (close to $300,000 according to my spreadsheet) — came to an end. But I didn’t expect to start my retirement battling bureaucracy. I had imagined spending more time writing, not wrangling paperwork.

Which brings me, on a brighter note, to something that has restored a little balance to the week…

I received an email today letting me know that my short story “Still Here” has been shortlisted in the Graeme Lay Short Story Competition — one of just ten finalists. It’s lovely to have something positive to focus on after such a chaotic week. Proof, perhaps, that persistence pays off in more ways than one.

Footnote:

This post follows on from my earlier Stuff opinion pieces — “Feeling Punished for Doing the Right Thing” and “The Grinding War of Attrition of Seeking a Disability Allowance”. Both describe my reluctant adventures through New Zealand’s bureaucratic maze. Different week, same circus — but at least the spreadsheets are tidy.