health

Categories under health

Tasteless

Written By: - Date published: 11:32 am, August 21st, 2008 - 75 comments

Thank God for those individuals of high morals who are at this moment whipping themselves into a frenzy over Pharmac’s decision to fund different varieties of condom as well as the plain ones it has funded for years. Where would be without you? Here’s the facts: – people have sex, young people have sex, people […]

Food Police State fails to eventuate

Written By: - Date published: 12:18 pm, June 4th, 2008 - 86 comments

Remember the tories and the Kiwiblog Right getting all flustered about the ‘Food Police’, when guidelines were announced to control junk food in school tuck shops? Remember how this was the Nanny State at its most perverse and surely one step from us all being fed a daily ration of Soylent Green? Well, now the […]

Butting out

Written By: - Date published: 2:43 pm, May 30th, 2008 - 16 comments

The Government has announced that the percentage of kiwi adults who smoke has fallen to 19.9%. The number of daily smokers is down from 25.2% of the adult population in 1996 to 18.7%. 150,000 people have given up in the last four years alone. The really good news is that the number of teenagers who are […]

Ryall: disgraceful

Written By: - Date published: 1:28 pm, May 30th, 2008 - 34 comments

National’s Tony Ryall has made a disgrace of himself, yet again. This time, by labelling a Government initiative to hasten improvements in the detection of colon cancer (which kills 1200 people a year) ‘a political stunt’. Here is Health Minister David Cunliffe and Ryall on National Radio: CUNLIFFE: I’m not doing this because of votes, […]

Hidden costs of private hospitals

Written By: - Date published: 2:39 pm, May 26th, 2008 - 13 comments

If you’re paying for your health care you’d expect good service wouldn’t you? The release of four health commissioner decisions over the weekend and covered by the Sunday Star Times, focused attention on private hospitals and the potential for catastrophic outcomes from relatively minor operations. According the report, Health Commissioner Ron Paterson says the cluster of cases […]

Telling porkies

Written By: - Date published: 9:50 am, May 22nd, 2008 - 44 comments

The Herald and National have started attacking every piece of government spending as pork-barrelling. Here’s some of what they’re calling ‘wasteful, needless spending’: $750 million of new health spending ($160 million for elective services) -Pork $700 million for Fast Forward Fund, food and pastoral sector research -Pork $665 million to buy the national rail operations […]

Government to fully fund virus vaccine

Written By: - Date published: 9:38 am, May 2nd, 2008 - 61 comments

Vernon Small reports that the PM is due to announce an immunisation programme for teenage girls targeting human papilloma virus. The programme is expected to start with girls aged 13 who will be offered free anti-cervical cancer immunisation as part of the $150 million government programme. The cost per person is expected to be around […]

I’ve got a solution, what’s the problem?

Written By: - Date published: 9:44 am, April 23rd, 2008 - 38 comments

The junior doctors’ strike is a difficult issue. On the one hand, these are highly valuable workers whom we can’t afford to lose overseas and they do work long hours in difficult conditions. On the other hand, the pay rise they want would cost $50 million and is well above what other medical professionals have […]

In praise of ACC

Written By: - Date published: 2:21 pm, April 3rd, 2008 - 34 comments

It was nice to see this independent report into the ACC scheme by Price Waterhouse Coopers. Amongst the general positive comments was this observation: “The ACC under its current implementation structure performs as well or better than most other schemes we can observe around the world.” “No fault” models (such as ours) are associated with: […]

What’s up, Doc?

Written By: - Date published: 11:37 am, March 31st, 2008 - 19 comments

There have been a number of stories recently about the number of doctors heading overseas but they are usually sensationalist and lack context. The most important questions are how many doctors do we have working in New Zealand, and how does that relate to the size of the population? Fortunately, the Medical Council produces an […]

More on mental health

Written By: - Date published: 12:36 pm, March 18th, 2008 - 11 comments

After reading Steve’s piece about suicide prevention and the subsequent comments I’ve decided a short history lesson on this issue is needed. In the late eighties and early nineties the mental health model was shifted from an institutional model to the ‘recovery model’. Effectively this meant mental health patients were shifted from facilities such as […]

Focus on suicide

Written By: - Date published: 9:02 pm, March 17th, 2008 - 31 comments

The Government has launched a new suicide prevention action plan. Suicide is a tragedy that has touched several Ministers personally and it is good to see them putting more effort into confronting it. The aim of the strategy is to improve mental and social well-being for at risk people as well as providing more effective […]

The Hawke’s Bay DHB report

Written By: - Date published: 4:52 pm, March 17th, 2008 - 34 comments

The report into the Hawke’s Bay DHB is out and, like everything to do with DHBs, it makes boring reading. That tireless muck-raker, Tony Ryall, won’t like it but the report reveals no corruption just sloppy work by DHB board member Peter Hausmann and the DHB Board. Hausmann worked for Healthcare NZ on a tender for […]

Ryall reveals his hollowness on Agenda

Written By: - Date published: 3:54 pm, October 1st, 2007 - 13 comments

all_your_base has already posted on Tony Ryall’s weasel words on yesterday’s Agenda programme, but what struck me about the interview was Ryall’s utter hollowness on policy. Here he is farming out elective surgery to the private sector: GUYON: Okay let’s talk about elective surgery because the Ministry of Health says at the moment the private […]

Weasel-words from Tony Ryall

Written By: - Date published: 12:48 pm, October 1st, 2007 - Comments Off on Weasel-words from Tony Ryall

This almost defies belief. Just as I was thinking that Ryall couldn’t screw up the release of their health policy any further… He shows up on Agenda and by refusing to answer Espiner’s direct question only adds to the impression that National’s not being straight with the public on its plans to cut health spending. […]

National: The market will set doctors’ fees

Written By: - Date published: 11:49 am, September 27th, 2007 - 8 comments

There’s been a bit of debate on The Standard about what National actually stands for. Up until now there have been those who have bought the Nats’ “moderate” rebranding. Yesterday though, Key and Ryall let the cat out of the bag. They haven’t changed at all. They’re the same old National Party. In what marks […]