Her mother, Seraya Figgins, of Waitati, said she was shocked when specialists told her, despite the fact her 16-year-old daughter would benefit from having her tonsils removed, it was highly unlikely she would get a publicly funded operation.
Doctors told Mrs Figgins the only way her daughter would get a tonsillectomy was if she paid to have the $3000 operation done privately, as her age and a lack of funding meant it was likely she would never get enough points to get on to the public waiting list.
"I think people ought to know our public health system is failing us. You pay your tax and then your child gets turned away from the hospital. It's pretty disgusting."
The family did not have health insurance and they would have had to pay for the operation by using money they had saved to enable Morgan to compete on the world stage, she said.
Otago District Health Board group manager Dr Colleen Coop said the hospital had finite resources and funding, and the simple reality was staff were not able to treat all patients who would clinically benefit from treatment and those with lesser need missed out.
Dunedin Hospital does an average 220-280 tonsillectomies each year.
In comparison, 240-260 tonsillectomies are done privately at Mercy Hospital a year.
Mrs Figgins said her daughter, who was still at school, had suffered six bouts of tonsillitis this year and two last year.
She was constantly on antibiotics, which she did not believe could be good for her daughter's health in the long term.
Morgan had represented New Zealand in ice-skating, but her constant ill-health was affecting her training.
While she did not want to use tonsillitis as an excuse, she had decided to pull out of international competitions next year as her performance has been below par.
"We get health insurance every time she goes overseas, but I didn't realise it was so important to have health insurance in our own country now," Mrs Figgins said.
Dunedin ear, nose and throat surgeon Martyn Fields said, when contacted, patients needed more than 30 points before it was deemed they would clinically benefit from surgery.
However, there was not enough funding to do that number of tonsillectomies and patients needed 55 points at present to qualify for surgery. The financial threshold had gradually increased from 40 to 55 points over the past seven years, he said.
Mr Fields has formerly spoken out about how government health funding is unfair and hammers lower middle-class working people in the South, who do not have health insurance.
Earlier this year, he said about 60% of his private patients did not have insurance and struggled to borrow money to have operations to treat conditions such as tonsillitis, sleep apnoea and nasal obstruction, which although not life-threatening could have a large impact on people's everyday life.
Dr Coop said points were awarded for the severity and persistence of the condition and decided by specialist doctors.
