People accessing key healthcare websites during the Covid-19 outbreak will be able to do so for free on their mobile phones, without using up data, the Health Minister has announced.
Chris Hipkins says a deal's been made between telecommunication companies Vodafone, Spark and 2Degrees to allow free access to 11 key health websites on mobile data.
It includes the Covid-19 website, the Ministry of Health website, and others including Plunket's site and some mental health and wellbeing resources.
"The cost of mobile data is proving to be a barrier for people to access key health information," Mr Hipkins told media today.
The data use will instead be charged back to the Ministry of Health directly.
The deal is in place until next June, but Mr Hipkins says it'll be reviewed every six months to confirm any extensions.
While at the moment it's only for the key health websites, Mr Hipkins says it's likely to be a good "pilot initiative" and could be rolled out for other things such as education or welfare in the future.
"This is what's effectively the 0800 number equivalent for accessing these kind of resources," he says.
"If that proves to be effective in the health space, then it may well be there are other public services where we may look to adopt a similar approach."
Mr Hipkins and Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield were unable to confirm the cost estimates today, but Dr Bloomfield says they'll look at finding and releasing that.
"It's a joint arrangement with the telcos so I imagine it'll be a good reduction," he says.
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