Irony

Written By: - Date published: 12:11 pm, July 10th, 2008 - 19 comments
Categories: Media - Tags:

Granny Herald’s Editorial yesterday “Private market can help ACC” – dancing on the head of a pin to justify privatising ACC to make $200 million profit for aussie insurers.

Granny Herald’s Editorial today “It works so don’t meddle” – opposing double crewing of ambulances because it will cost us the princely sum of $5 each a year.

19 comments on “Irony ”

  • Comments are now closed

  1. Steve Withers 1
    10 July 2008 at 12:57 pm

    The Herald is quite bizarre in some of its editorial stances. Double-crewing ambulances is an obvious requirement.

    How on earth is an ambulance staffed by one person supposed to provide emergency care while driving to the nearest hospital?

    The added delay of calling out another person or the fire service will ultimately cost someone’s life…..

  2. T-rex 2
    10 July 2008 at 1:05 pm

    Bizzare is an understatement. Contemptible would be better.

    The cost is huge, even before a life is lost. Standard of care and ambulance crew safety are both hugely compromised when singly crewed. To say “ambulances work” is idiotic. Single crewed ambulances are a compromise of necessity, they’re better than nothing but that’s all.

  3. Bryan Spondre 3
    10 July 2008 at 1:07 pm

    “Unfortunately, the Labour Government’s rush to reassert ACC made it difficult to establish the reality.”

    Sounds like Labour was doing the dancing: dancing to the tune of socialism. More interested in pursuing their agenda of nationalization for nationalizations sake than doing what was good for the economy.

  5. Matthew Pilott 5
    10 July 2008 at 1:24 pm

    steve, he’s referring to the system to which most other national insurance schemes are judged, and found wanting.

  6. T-rex 6
    10 July 2008 at 1:27 pm

    Sure Bryan, they should have left it so it could become like the US system which is so much better and cheaper than ours.

  7. T-rex 7
    10 July 2008 at 1:31 pm

    Hey look Bryan, ACC commissioned and independent report to answer your questions. The verdict is in, and once again you clearly have no idea what you’re talking about.

    It’s not difficult to establish the reality at all, plenty of other countries carried on down the path we stepped away from and our system is now almost universally better and cheaper than theirs.

  8. Bryan Spondre 8
    10 July 2008 at 2:15 pm

    T Rex: “commissioned and independent report” is an oxymoron. You are an experienced observer of the political process and know exactly how easy it is to determine a reports conclusions by careful crafting of the terms of reference.

  9. Bryan Spondre 9
    10 July 2008 at 2:18 pm

    “Granny Herald” will always be unpopular with Labour for daring to question the Electoral Finance Act ( and probably destroying any chance Labour had of being re-elected).

  10. T-rex 10
    10 July 2008 at 2:25 pm

    Bryan, why don’t you actually go and READ THE F*CKING REPORT! Then you’ll be able to have an informed opinion (the shock of which may kill you – be sure to have a single crewed ambulance standing by) and you might sound like slightly less of a moron.

    —

    The NZ Herald editorials referenced above are both complete garbage.

  11. Robinsod 11
    10 July 2008 at 3:12 pm

    Bryan can’t read. He has his helper monkey type for him. It’s quite a smart monkey. I believe it gets quite frustrated.

  12. rave 12
    10 July 2008 at 3:21 pm

    Granny Herald thinks that sick people who cannot drive can die.

  13. T-rex 13
    10 July 2008 at 3:22 pm

    Brilliant 🙂 I can just picture the poor monkey.

    “You want me to type what? What? But… but dude, that’s retarded. What? No, I’m not writing that, it’s completely retarded! Aww… no wait… awww man. Look, stop crying. I’ll buy you an icecream? PLEASE stop crying. Goddamn it. Ok fine, fine, here, I’m writing it ok. You’ve got no one to blame but yourself. Christ on a bike…”

  14. Felix 14
    10 July 2008 at 4:52 pm

    It’s the monkey’s family I really feel for. They have to live with the shame every day.

  15. Phil 15
    10 July 2008 at 5:05 pm

    ‘sod’s illegitimate children live with the shame too…

  16. Robinsod 16
    10 July 2008 at 5:15 pm

    Phil – I am your father.

  17. Robinsod 17
    10 July 2008 at 5:16 pm

    Rex – that’s the funniest thing I’ve read for months!

  18. T-rex 18
    10 July 2008 at 10:55 pm

    I can’t take credit, the helper monkey was my muse.

    I was biking home this evening and started laughing all over again… the image is just great. I bet it’s the closet monkey from family guy.

  19. jbc 19
    11 July 2008 at 1:12 am

    It seems obvious that at least a double crew is minimum for an ambulance. On the face of it I’d agree: If I call a taxi then I expect a single driver. An ambluance: at least one crew in the back.

    But after reading the editorial I begin to think “not enough information”. The following sounds pragmatic:

    The committee was told that in some areas as many as 70 per cent of call-outs are answered by an ambulance officer arriving solo, sometimes with another arriving as soon as possible.

    Hmmm… which areas, how often is sometimes, and has it mattered? Is it better to have one person on the spot sooner than wait, say, 15-30 minutes, to have two? It also seems that in other (presumably more populated) areas this is not the case.

    Sure, it would be nice to have minimum two crew: as long as it did not incur any time penalty. In remote areas I can’t see how this would be the case unless we paid them to sit in the ambulance 24/7.

    Anyone have any idea whether or not this problem is real or imagined?

    I’d like to weigh in on the “more crew” being sensible but not sure if that is the case.

    [yes, I have past experience with ambulance attending after hours and in a small town – cycling accident – and it would not have mattered how many crew attended. It took quite some time.]