Nurses working at managed isolation facilities across the country have raised concerns about staff shortages and instability.
.. The ministry said the matters have been addressed – but many health care professionals working at border facilities disagree.
In a peculiarly bizarre way this is somewhat comforting.
When entropy reigns supreme, and it seems there is nothing and no one who can be trusted there's our systemically dysfunctional Ministry of Health reliably doing what we all know they do best.
Denying, minimising, dismissing and generally disrespecting those at the front line and at the coal face.
In a statement to RNZ, the ministry confirmed all matters identified in the audit had been followed up and addressed.
But that is rejected by two of the country's largest nursing unions, which have hundreds of members working in MIQ facilities.
oh well if only we had a caring and gentle government that has a clear majority to get stuff done.
The problem is not the 'Ministry' the problem is the government. And it seems that the Labour Government is even less inclined to work for their wages then the National Goverment.
I spoke with a nurse a few month back who laughingly stated that the new ventilators had arrived in the country – thanks god – now if we could just train and hire and pay the nurses to man and monitor these ventilators.
Surely any day now – any day now, our Labor overlords are gonna do something about something. I can see someone write an article about how all this time was squandered by people who yet don't suffer the consequences of their actions.
Except, this isn’t BAU and MoH is not the only Ministry involved in MIQ.
From your link:
Dr Sally Roberts is a clinical microbiologist at Auckland District Health Board and an advisor to the Covid-19 taskforce.
She said everyone was working hard to keep staff and returnees safe – and while facilities were steadily improving, it was important to remember they were newly established entities.
"Prior to 2020, we didn't have managed isolation quarantine facilities of this nature, and they involve multiple agencies working together who haven't had a working relationship in the past, and the facilities are not designed for managing individuals with infectious diseases, so it's been a big learning curve."
It is important to keep the pressure on and the nurses unions, epidemiologists, and other experts are doing a good job at that and in sticking up for their members at the same time. However, the RNZ article was more balanced and the situation appears to be less B & W than your comment suggested 🙂
I think it is important to keep in mind that nobody has the perfect answer/solution/approach and that the situation with Covid is always evolving and changing.
With respect, Incognito, I assume that folks who visit here are more than capable of reading a linked article in its entirety and form their own opinions.
Twenty years of having to deal with the Ministry of Health and its agents over disability issues has left me cynical and disillusioned. Health is about people…and unfortunately our Ministry of Health, as a bureaucracy, seems to forget this basic premise.
The Ministry has form. For years they denied, dismissed and minimised the abuse and neglect of disabled people in MOH funded residential care. Look up the 2013 articles by Kirsty Johnston.
At the same time the Ministry declared open warfare against those people with significant disabilities and the family members who they had chosen to provide the high level of care they need. Or they had no option (other than the potential horrors of residential care) than to have resident family provide the care…because the Ministry of Health refused to fund the advanced personal cares required.
Despite the issue of paying family carers having been heard many times in various legal settings over the past two decades (with our side winning with embarrassing monotony) it was only in April last year, and under 'special' Covid conditions, that my partner has been allowed to pay me as his carer. And we have been reminded by the Ministry this is temporary. Goddess forbid we should ever feel secure.
A quick search on the Natrad webpage and you'll find numerous articles (Many by Catherine Hutton) describing the deep despair of disabled people and their families. Nothing changes for the better because of the culture of the Ministry.
I spent a while over New Years speaking with a midwife. Again, the good folk at Natrad have also kept track over the years as the midwives have battled to gain some level of respect from the funders… the Miserly of Health.
And this midwife was using the same language and expressed the same deep despair that we in the MOH disability community have voiced.
And I'm hearing that same tone from these nurses.
But this time, with Te Virus scratching at our borders, the risks if the Ministry runs true to form will impact the whole community.
You’d be surprised how many people don’t read any further than a headline 😉
When people read your comment, they may or may not decide to read the linked article, based on your PoV. BTW, this is exactly why tend to insist on links and a brief accompanying commentary as to what to expect and as to why people should read it.
Your views of MoH are well documented here and you have your reasons.
I make no apologies for presenting my take on the same article to which you linked. This does not take away anything at all from your personal experiences of and with MoH. It is about presenting another perspective on the content of the article and a number of voices therein, including those of some nurses, not on MoH as such.
And yet despite the nurses union bringing this up (and I don’t doubt their concerns, after all who would want to be working at the border), we still have to date no community out break and the times we have it has been very swiftly contained. So time to admit moh doing a lot that is right.
it is worrying though about the new mutation. Only a matter of time before another outbreak. Trust our health people it manage it, but will likely mean another location
Prior to the more infectious strains the MoH was able to manage Covid – 19. Looking at overseas tends with the newer highly infectious strains I do not have the same level of confidence when it comes to containing a community outbreak.
Hypothetical exchange between Senior Management at a MIQ facility and a Senior Level Bureaucrat at the MOH.
MIQ…."We really need more staff at all levels…."
MOH…."But you're all doing so well! There's absolutely NO community transmission! It's obvious we've got this! Keep it up team!"
MIQ…"But we're all so tired. We've all been at this for months. We need to train up many more people so we can have a break. Some at the frontline are so scared of making a mistake because of exhaustion that stress levels are through the roof. Please approve more funding for more staff."
MOH…. "Look guys…we get this is all very new…but its clear we have hit just the right note here. We don't need to go overboard. All those little niggles that you guys had last October have been dealt to. Look at the paperwork …we have an Action Plan!"
Their job is working with samples that are presumed to be dangerously pathogenic at all times, not just when there's a pandemic going on. So they've got the mindset, skills and equipment to keep themselves safe.
(Being purposefully vague to protect the guilty) there was fairly recently a non-medical biohazard facility that was close to losing certification because it had a lot of students screwing up the lab's integrity. Things like opening windows when the air is supposed to be filtered before going back outside, or not wearing lab coats so they're taking stuff outside on their street clothes.
And storing radium in a draw in the laboratory. My cousin who worked at the DSIR Physical Engineering Laboratory in Gracefield tells of the time they were doing a clean-up in the late 50's when they opened a draw they seldom used and found at the back a large sample of radium (I've forgotten how many curies were written on it). He initially worked for Sir Ernest Marsden as a lab tech.
Bit off topic – a question in a recent quiz in ‘The Listener’ reminded me of the once common enough practice of using X-ray Shoe Fitter, Pedoscope and Foot-o-scope devices in shoe shops.
The first scientific evaluations of these machines in 1948 immediately sparked concern for radiation protection and electrical safety reasons, and found them ineffective at shoe fitting.
In 1999, Time placed Shoe-Store X Rays on a list of the 100 worst ideas of the 20th century.
A very bad idea, but oddly enough one that didn't trigger an epidemic of foot cancer either. If there was any radiation harm caused by them, it's buried in the statistical noise.
Besides that wiki article bases it's case on the now very shakey Linear No Threshold (LNT) thesis originally put up by Muller in 1927. While it may have been a useful idea in the early days of nuclear radiation, being the most conservative model possible and could have been justified as a 'precautionary principle', all the real world data since has strongly suggested that in fact all living creatures are constantly bathed in a background radiation that does us no harm at all.
Indeed there are a number of cases where people have lived with substantially higher background radiation levels over long periods, and surprisingly show reduced levels of cancer.
No-one has been able to prove a watertight case either way (nor given the nature of the RCT necessary are they ever likely to), but there are good grounds to think that the LNT thesis is far too conservative and generates perverse outcomes.
That is interesting; how on earth did you stumble on that?
You do ask a really worthwhile question; how to tell the difference between a useful result and 'covid bandwagon'. After all a decent RCT trial to put the matter beyond all doubt is simply not going to be available in most cases. Demanding this level of gold standard proof is not always reasonable.
A good comparison can be made with the case made against tobacco smoking and lung cancer, that never rested on anything more than historic observation studies and correlations as far as I’m aware. I doubt anyone ever did a full noise RCT on this (although I could always be wrong).
As time goes on we continue to learn more about COVID, and we find all manner of interesting aspects like the probable role that Vitamin D, Zinc, and Selenium may play. The jury remains noisily deadlocked on Ivermectin, and I'm sure there a few other plays out there I'm unaware of.
One point I need to clarify; it's perfectly possible to be both alarmed at the threat of this disease and at the same time alarmed and disappointed at some of the responses by various medical authorities and governments.
More than anything else we need to stop politicising this; it was a catastrophe for the climate change issue, and will play out no better on this.
For all practical purposes, yes, all asbestos is harmful. Your mat was probably made with chrysotile (white asbestos), which is the most common and least hazardous form of asbestos. But that "least hazardous" is kinda like saying ebola is less hazardous than rabies.
The really dangerous route for it to cause harm is when it get turns into dust and you breathe it in. So your mat for hot pots is lowish risk, unless you were in the habit of banging it against a post at about head level to get dust out of it, like a rug.
If it's not getting turned into dust, then it's low risk. That's why the advice is if your house has asbestos in the walls or ceiling or roof, don't worry about it unless you disturb it somehow. Like doing renovations, or cleaning an asbestos cement roof. Then you need the $$$$$ expert$$$$$ to come and deal with it.
Nasal/oral swabs don’t exhale, sneeze or cough on the lab workers. The actual sample is stuck in and onto the bud, which is how it has been designed to work. Unless the lab worker licks their gloved fingers, sucks the bud, or sticks the bud up their own nose by accident, the risks of getting infected are slim.
Do you know how the nasal oral swabs are destroyed?
Also the method to clean the lab equipment. Both could cause contamination. I am not sure how long samples used to test for Covid are stored for either.
Incinerator and autoclave respectively. In my memory of biological wastes and laboratory equipment. There would likely be a negative pressure gradient in any lab analyzing SARS-CoV2 too, at least you'd hope so!
Yup. Liquid waste is treated with special disinfectant. Surfaces are treated with disinfectant too and UV light. All disposable waste is treated as biohazardous medical waste. Much of what is used in the lab is disposable anyway and provided in kits, except the PCR machine 😉
“Covid 19 coronavirus: Lockdown expected if UK or South African variant found in community.”
Do we really have to wait until it is in the community to lock down. Economically and socially we would be much better off to lock down NOW. Lock all travellers from countries with high rates of Covid.
There is 1 in 30 infected with it in England.
50% of the elderly are dying from it.
Every 36 hours someone breaks the rules in NZ ‘s quarantine !
New Zealanders have had 9 MONTHS to get home.
Time now to take care of NZ especially the people working on our front lines.
It would be much less economically crushing to stop the travellers till things improve than leave it to a point where the NZ community has to go into Lock Downs again to stop a now very virulent disease.
Wakeup, time to stop being SO KIND, for Gods sake !
or else let people come back as they are rightfully entitled to and instead increase staff level, testing, and anyone caught breaking quarantine rules is having the book thrown at them, their name and face printed all over the news – yeah, shame these entitled assholes – and thus also prevent the coming in of a new threat and the spread there of.
Do we really have to wait until it is in the community to lock down?
MIQ transmission is going to happen with the highly infectious strains and when this happens how is it going to be managed for a person on day 12 not in quarantine just isolation?
The government needs to have the MIQ capacity for this senario. Unprepared will be seen as a failure and National will be all over this.
Think that the risk is not just due to the variant that leaks out, but who it leaks to. Greater Brisbane has just been locked down for 3 days because of a cleaner at a quarantine hotel was infected with the UK variant, but despite 50,000 tests, no-one else has been detected with it. Maybe that’s because the cleaner lived alone and wasn’t an outgoing, social person or someone with a large family who she spread it to. Compare the fast transmission that happened with the Auckland cluster and the Melbourne one. One of the new variants is probably going to leak more often from now on though as there is an increasing amount of it and not just in the UK or South Africa.
Stopping people coming in stops the planes coming and likewise restricts a lot of essential imports ( medicines and like,
) coming in and perishable exports going out via airfreight, This is further complicated with our sea ports been already congested. Simply moving to air freight charters is cost prohibitive and not feasible in a highly global and connected world The government needs to view all these factors and risks, not simply taking a myopic health view only
[You’re spouting so much crap here again because you’re full of shit and nothing else.
Our Government is doing what you accuse it of not doing and more and the irony is that you’re the one with the myopic view.
Outgoing flights are pretty much empty passenger wise and incoming aren't much better because of the MIQ limits. Repatriation charters and fishing / merchant crew changes a slight exception.
As for profit for the airline, I'd say they are loosing money or just cost recovery on the passengers they carry because of the increased per passenger crew costs with the light loadings.
Red: I assume you are not a health care worker. Have you thought about what would happen if our ICUs become full of the COVID sick? I'm making another assumption about you and I apologise if I'm incorrect but from your posts you sound quite young so I assume when you catch COVID you won't be in a high risk group for complications so won't need to go to hospital.
But, if you are unlucky enough to, say, be critically injured in a car accident or suffer a stroke then you'll be denied access to hospital as it will be full already.
"Myopic" this may be, but once our hospitals are full, plenty of those with non-COVID conditions will also die.
What do your stats mean? How do they compare to the other older variants, for example? Are you scaremongering?
Are you suggesting that all New Zealanders who’d want it should have come home by now and that the ones who didn’t have only themselves to blame? It reminds of the bene-bashing ‘reasoning’ by National and ACT. Nice!
Do you believe there are no social costs to locking down “NOW”?
What has “being SO KIND” got to do with it? It sounds like a cheap shot to me.
Have to confess that crossed my mind too. When it was still relatively easy to come back to NZ they didn't do so. Now that the pandemic outbreak has reached emergency levels in the UK they want to come home and expect the welcoming mat to be laid out for them.
Well, they can come back… when it is safe again and NZ is ready to resume normal services. There will always be exceptions granted for special cases.
When it was still relatively easy to come back to NZ they didn't do so.
I don’t follow Janet or you on this ‘nine month’ issue. MIQ was introduced on 9 April 2020, i.e. nine months ago. It was indeed “relatively easy” to return to NZ before then and many New Zealanders did during that short window. In fact, this was one of the reasons why MIQ was not introduced before 9 April.
I recall the warnings being issued back in February and March that this pandemic was going to be around for a long time and that it will get a lot worse before it gets better. A vaccine was thought to be at least two years away.
It shouldn't have taken much to conclude that it would be best to get back to NZ as soon as possible… if simply because of our geographical isolation. I was surprised more people didn't take advantage of the "window" while it was available.
I give my parents as an example. My father was in Germany in the mid 1930s and saw with his own eyes the proliferation of munitions factories and the mood of the nation in general. He returned to England and immediately made plans to take his young family out of Britain to somewhere safe. They went to Australia initially then moved on to NZ two years later. They arrived just before WW2 broke out.
At the time of their departure, they were laughed at by family and friends back in England but he was the one who had the last laugh.
Ok, I think I understand you now, thank you. However, that window of opportunity was a little more than one month or so, not nine months, which means that you and I were thinking of different periods.
Well, I was actually thinking for a longer period – including the start of the mandatory 14 day hotel isolation upon arrival. Over the winter months especially I wouldn't have thought that was too traumatic for most people to handle.
reasons other than self interest for not returning earlier:
lack of money
job contract
fixed term tenancy
needed to sell house
kids in school
poor job prospects in NZ
torn between family there and being here
That last one applies to two of my siblings. I know another family who the job contract applied to.
It doesn't take much imagination to see that NZers overseas have a range of restrictions on their lives that might prevent them just packing up and coming home.
This is horrible that a baby has died and someone is obstructing justice / police. Why do they protect these people? Good that the police have arrested the person for providing false information.
"arborists have inspected the site and made recommendations to undertake work to ensure the vegetation is healthy and safe.
Most of the work involved trimming shrubs back from footpaths, lights or clothes lines".
Lovely to walk footpaths overhung and bordered by trees, lights are unnecessary – if you're afraid of the dark carry a torch – it's called "taking responsibility as an individual for personal safety", clothes lines – it's not direct sunlight but the moisture content of the breeze that determines drying time and a bit of bird shit on the sheets is easily scraped off. Arborists are in business to make money so are looking for reasons to trim and remove, and the tidiness ideology that rules suburbia is enabling them. Tidiness is a huge earner in other ways too of course, supported by "health and safety." regulations.
An untidy, unhealthy and unsafe environment nurtured our human evolution and I owe myself to it – unthinking and ungrateful as others seem to be.
That's why we don't have lightbulbs in the house and the kids have to buy batteries for their torches from their allowances, so they learn to take personal responsibility.
Stuff has been massaging the truth about slave fishermen. There is no struggle – the company applies few a few hundred visas without making any remotely credible attempt to train or retain locals, and Immigration just let it happen, never checking up, just as they have for the last forty years.
A better description would be "the industry is too lazy and inept to train and retain kiwi workers, and the corrupt government supports and colludes in their law-breaking."
Nothing to see here – certainly no NZ jobs lost to exploitive practices.
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Bob Edlin writes – A High Court judge has decided miscreants who have mana – or who claim to have mana – should be treated differently from miscreants who have none. It’s a ruling that suggests indigenous law-breakers have a better chance of securing a discharge without conviction ...
Welcome to the first, and possibly last, edition of Brickbats, Bouquets and Bull’s Wool. In which I’ll take a look at the events of the last week or so, and rate them.In such ratings the numbers usually have more to do with the opinions of the reviewer, than the actual ...
Roger Partridge writes – My earlier column this month, New Zealand’s highest court could be facing a turning point, prompted a flood of feedback from business readers and lawyers alike. A common query was what Parliament can do to restrain an overreaching judiciary. This week I discuss two steps Parliament ...
TL;DR: In today’s ‘six-stack’ of substacks at 6.16pm on Friday, March 22: writes about New Zealand's Building Boom—And What the World Must Learn From It over at his substack. challenges the Auckland Council’s use of a 3.8 degrees of warming forecast to oppose a wave-park and data centre project ...
Is she hinting that the Coalition Government will have to back down on key promises it made in Opposition?The Minister of Finance, Nicola Willis, is telling an evolving story about her fiscal challenges. In Opposition she was confident that she could deliver her promised income tax cuts. Appointed minister, she ...
Buzz from the Beehive Ministers of the Crown have drawn attention to one sector of the science sector which is unlikely to be subjected to heavy spending cuts, a state-funded broadcaster which is doing nicely, thank you, and a sporting event that had $5.4 million from the public purse puffed ...
Abbott’s Freestyle Libre sensors allow continuous glucose monitoring (CGM). The sensor is applied to the back of the patient’s arm, with a thin filament under the skin measuring glucose levels constantly. But it costs around $100 per sensor and must be replaced once every 14 days. Photo by BSIP/Universal Images ...
The Inspector General of Intelligence and Security (IGIS) recently released a report in which he exposes the existence of a foreign intelligence partner-controlled technological “capability” inside the headquarters of the GCSB, NZ’s 5 Eyes-affiliated signals intelligence collection and analysis agency. … Continue reading → ...
Peter Dunne writes – Nearly three decades after the introduction of MMP and multiparty governments there should be a greater level of understanding about their finer points than often appears to be the case. The reaction to the despicable outburst from the Deputy Prime Minister at the weekend highlights ...
The sweet kisses from fruit of summerHave slowly been turning dullerYou say, "those times"And "remember the daysWhen we went outside and there still was the shade?"Taking no reason into play…Autumn. Clear, blue days shortening to longer nights, growing colder. Aotearoa.That’s us. The temperature dropping, the looming car crash - so ...
Bryce Edwards writes – “It is often said that behind every great man is a great woman”. This is the pitch by the National Party Botany electorate branch to attend their “Ladies Afternoon Tea with Amanda Luxon”. For $110 including GST, you can turn up on Saturday 20 April ...
David Farrar writes – The Electoral Commission has published the expense returns for political parties for the 2023 election. I’ve put them in a table with how many votes a party got so we can see the spend per vote. National only spent $3.34 for every vote they got, almost ...
Winston Peters’ headline-making actions over the past week may have been a show of political power intended to strengthen his hand in Budget negotiations. It was no accident that his State of the Nation speech was as it was. He made it as New Zealand First Leader, not as Deputy ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The five things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wrote and spoke about via The Kākā and elsewhere for paying subscribers in the last week included:Former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson bowed out of politics this week, giving a series of exit ...
Graham Adams writes — If you love the law or sausages, as the saying goes, best not to look too closely at how they are made. And after watching the orgy of self-pity when Newshub’s closure was announced on February 28, television journalism should definitely be added to the list of those ...
Venerable New Zealand political commentator, Chris Trotter (https://bowalleyroad.blogspot.com/), is a sad creature these days. Once one of the most reliable Leftist writers out there – Economic Left at that – Trotter seems to have absorbed the worldview of Auckland culture-war obsessives. It is not for me to categorise what he ...
The cruelty of short-term memory loss is that each time you ask where she is, you get the fresh shock and grief of the news. That was Dad's day yesterday.Comfortingly, it seems to be less so today. Last night he looked crumpled, today he seems more settled. There's a card ...
Photo by Alvan Nee on UnsplashIt’s that new day of the week (Thursday rather than Friday) when and I co-host our ‘hoon’ webinar with paying subscribers to The Kākā for an hour at 5 pm. Jump on this link on YouTube Livestream for our chat about the week’s news ...
Buzz from the Beehive One minister is talking tough while a colleague – whose ministry had acted tough and drawn a barrage of flak – has shown an official softening. Some ministers are doing what Labour was good at, which is distributing public funds to causes regarded as worthy or ...
A ballot for 4 Member's Bills was held today, and the following bills were drawn: Insurance Contracts Bill (Duncan Webb) Income Tax (Clean Transport FBT Exclusion) Amendment Bill (Julie Anne Genter) Crimes (Increased Penalties for Slavery Offences) Amendment Bill (Greg Fleming) Pae Ora (Healthy Futures) ...
One of the strongest narratives about "our" spy agencies is that they are basically institutional traitors, working for foreign powers (or just themselves), without any control or oversight by the elected government. And today, we have yet another report from the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security which explicitly confirms this. ...
“It is often said that behind every great man is a great woman”. This is the pitch by the National Party Botany electorate branch to attend their “Ladies Afternoon Tea with Amanda Luxon”. For $110 including GST, you can turn up on Saturday 20 April to meet the Prime Minister’s ...
The Coalition Government’s plan to ‘get Auckland moving’ is a cuts cover-up that will ultimately cost Aucklanders more to move around the city, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
Slashing the Ministry of Pacific Peoples by 40% will have a devastating impact on pacific communities and further highlights how little this government cares about anything other than cutting taxes for the wealthiest few. ...
Labour has proposed an urgent inquiry to investigate the ever-increasing profits of supermarkets, aiming to lower costs for shoppers and food producers alike, says Labour Spokesperson for Commerce and Consumer Affairs Arena Williams and Primary Production Spokesperson Cushla Tangaere-Manuel. ...
With 14% of jobs on the line at the Ministry for Ethnic Communities, the responsible Minister Melissa Lee is failing to stand up for the very communities she’s meant to be representing. ...
COURT OF APPEAL: TRIFECTA OF VICTORY FOR NZ FIRST, TRIFECTA OF FAILURE FOR OPPONENTS For the third time since April 2020, New Zealand First has defeated the Serious Fraud Office and all those complicit in a malicious attack against a political party going about its lawful business in a lawful ...
The Green Party stands with people who live in public housing, people in dire housing need, experts and advocates in demanding better than the Government’s archaic approach to housing those who need our support the most. ...
New Zealand has recently lost the hosting rights of some major international sporting events including the America’s Cup, the Rugby Championship, Netball World Cup, and the Wellington Sevens. We are now at a huge risk of losing SailGP as well. And it won’t stop there. The recent issues with SailGP ...
A Member’s Bill drawn this week would modernise insurance law and make things fairer and more transparent for consumers, Christchurch Central MP Duncan Webb said. ...
The Minister for Disability Issues has confirmed she was aware of funding issues in mid-December and did nothing to stop it. On 14 March, she signed off on changes that were announced and implemented on 18 March without any consultation with disability communities. ...
Green Party MP Julie Anne Genter says her members' bill is an opportunity for the coalition government to plug the gap in electric vehicle incentives. ...
The National Government continues to talk about irresponsible tax cuts that will only drive up inflation, despite the country entering a technical recession. ...
The Minister for Disability Issues must act urgently to reinstate flexibility around the funding for disability support and apologise to disabled carers. ...
This story has been initiated by a leftie shill reporter who proactively sought to call a member of a former band, which disbanded twelve years ago, give their biased appraisal of what was said in my speech, and concocted a ham-fisted attempt at a story that does nothing but show ...
The Government has accepted Labour’s change to the Road User Charge (RUC) discount for hybrid vehicles, meaning there will still be some incentive for people to buy greener vehicles. ...
Many in the mainstream media have taken what was said in New Zealand First’s State of the Nation Speech in Palmerston North on Sunday and deliberately, deceitfully, and ignorantly misrepresented what I said and why I said it. The headlines and commentary on the news stated that I compared ‘co-governance ...
Kicking the most vulnerable people out of state housing and pushing them towards homelessness will result in a proliferation of poverty and trauma across our most vulnerable communities. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader and MP for Waiariki, Rawiri Waititi has penned a letter asking MPs to support his members bill to remove GST from all food. The bill is expected to go through its first reading in parliament this Wednesday. “I’m calling on all political parties to support my ...
Good afternoon. Thank you for, in your very busy lives, turning up to this meeting today. On October 14th last year New Zealanders overwhelmingly voted for change. That is exactly what this new government is bringing. New Zealand First campaigned to ‘take back our country’ and stop the disastrous economic ...
This year is about getting real with Kiwis and discussing the tough issues, as the National Government exacerbates inequality and divides New Zealand, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said ...
The Government adding Significant Natural Areas (SNAs) to its already roaring environmental policy bonfire is an assault on the future of wildlife that makes Aotearoa unique. ...
After 12 years of fighting to protect our moana we are finding ourselves back at square one and back at court. Today, the Environmental Protection Agency is sitting in Hawera to reconsider an application from Trans-Tasman Resources to dig up 50 million tonnes of the seabed in South Taranaki. This ...
Minister Shane Jones’ decision to step away from a seabed mining project is evidence of the murky waters surrounding the Government’s fast-track legislation. ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The Coalition Government’s miscalculation saga continues as it has forgotten an eyewatering $90 million gap in its interest deductibility cost figures, say Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds and Revenue Spokesperson Deborah Russell. ...
He Pou a Rangi Climate Change Commission has today released advice that says if the Government doesn’t act now New Zealand is at risk of not meeting its climate goals. ...
The Coalition Government has today confirmed it is abandoning first home buyers who are struggling to get ahead, says Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds. ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed the passing of legislation to move light electric vehicles (EVs) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) into the road user charges system from 1 April. “It was always intended that EVs and PHEVs would be exempt from road user charges until they reached two ...
New Zealand is strengthening its ability to combat illegal fishing outside its domestic waters and beef up regulation for its own commercial fishers in international waters through a Bill which had its first reading in Parliament today. The Fisheries (International Fishing and Other Matters) Amendment Bill 2023 sets out stronger ...
Economists Carl Hansen and Professor Prasanna Gai have been appointed to the Reserve Bank Monetary Policy Committee, Finance Minister Nicola Willis announced today. The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) is the independent decision-making body that sets the Official Cash Rate which determines interest rates. Carl Hansen, the executive director of Capital ...
Apartment owners and buyers will soon have greater protections as further changes to the law on unit titles come into effect, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “The Unit Titles (Strengthening Body Corporate Governance and Other Matters) Amendment Act had already introduced some changes in December 2022 and May 2023, and ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters will travel to Egypt and Europe from this weekend. “This travel will focus on a range of New Zealand’s traditional diplomatic and security partnerships while enabling broad engagement on the urgent situation in Gaza,” Mr Peters says. Mr Peters will attend the NATO Foreign ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown is encouraging all road users to stay safe, plan their journeys ahead of time, and be patient with other drivers while travelling around this Easter long weekend. “Road safety is a responsibility we all share, and with increased traffic on our roads expected this Easter we ...
About 1.4 million New Zealanders will receive cost of living relief through increased government assistance from April 1 909,000 pensioners get a boost to Superannuation, including 5000 veterans 371,000 working-age beneficiaries will get higher payments 45,000 students will see an increase in their allowance Over a quarter of New Zealanders ...
Ensuring social housing is being provided to those with the greatest needs is front of mind as the Government restarts social housing tenancy reviews, Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka says. “Our relentless focus on building a strong economy is to ensure we can deliver better public services such as social ...
The Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary will not go ahead, with Cabinet deciding to stop work on the proposed reserve and remove the Bill that would have established it from Parliament’s order paper. “The Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary Bill would have created a 620,000 sq km economic no-go zone,” Oceans and Fisheries Minister ...
Dam safety regulations are being amended so that smaller dams won’t be subject to excessive compliance costs, Minister for Building and Construction Chris Penk says. “The coalition Government is focused on reducing costs and removing unnecessary red tape so we can get the economy back on track. “Dam safety regulations ...
The coalition Government is expanding the medium-scale adverse event classification to parts of the North Island as dry weather conditions persist, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced today. “I have made the decision to expand the medium-scale adverse event classification already in place for parts of the South Island to also cover the ...
The passing of legislation giving effect to coalition Government tax commitments has been welcomed by Finance Minister Nicola Willis. “The Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill will help place New Zealand on a more secure economic footing, improve outcomes for New Zealanders, and make our tax system ...
Science, Innovation and Technology Minister Judith Collins and Tertiary Education and Skills Minister Penny Simmonds today announced plans to transform our science and university sectors to boost the economy. Two advisory groups, chaired by Professor Sir Peter Gluckman, will advise the Government on how these sectors can play a greater ...
The Budget will deliver urgently-needed tax relief to hard-working New Zealanders while putting the government’s finances back on a sustainable track, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The Finance Minister made the comments at the release of the Budget Policy Statement setting out the Government’s Budget objectives. “The coalition Government intends ...
The coalition Government will look at options to address a zoning issue that limits how much financial support Queenstown residents can get for accommodation. Cabinet has agreed on a response to the Petitions Committee, which had recommended the geographic information MSD uses to determine how much accommodation supplement can be ...
Cabinet has agreed to a short extension to the final reporting timeframe for the Royal Commission into Abuse in Care from 28 March 2024 to 26 June 2024, Internal Affairs Minister Brooke van Velden says. “The Royal Commission wrote to me on 16 February 2024, requesting that I consider an ...
The coalition Government is delivering an $18 million boost to New Zealanders needing to travel for specialist health treatment, Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says. “These changes are long overdue – the National Travel Assistance (NTA) scheme saw its last increase to mileage and accommodation rates way back in 2009. ...
The Government is recognising the innovative and rising talent in New Zealand’s growing space sector, with the Prime Minister and Space Minister Judith Collins announcing the new Prime Minister’s Prizes for Space today. “New Zealand has a growing reputation as a high-value partner for space missions and research. I am ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has confirmed New Zealand’s concerns about cyber activity have been conveyed directly to the Chinese Government. “The Prime Minister and Minister Collins have expressed concerns today about malicious cyber activity, attributed to groups sponsored by the Chinese Government, targeting democratic institutions in both New ...
Independent Reviewers appointed for School Property Inquiry Education Minister Erica Stanford today announced the appointment of three independent reviewers to lead the Ministerial Inquiry into the Ministry of Education’s School Property Function. The Inquiry will be led by former Minister of Foreign Affairs Murray McCully. “There is a clear need ...
State Highway 1 across the Brynderwyns will be open for Easter weekend, with work currently underway to ensure the resilience of this critical route being paused for Easter Weekend to allow holiday makers to travel north, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Today I visited the Brynderwyn Hills construction site, where ...
Introduction Good morning to you all, and thanks for having me bright and early today. I am absolutely delighted to be the Minister for Infrastructure alongside the Minister of Housing and Resource Management Reform. I know the Prime Minister sees the three roles as closely connected and he wants me ...
New Zealand stands with the United Kingdom in its condemnation of People’s Republic of China (PRC) state-backed malicious cyber activity impacting its Electoral Commission and targeting Members of the UK Parliament. “The use of cyber-enabled espionage operations to interfere with democratic institutions and processes anywhere is unacceptable,” Minister Responsible for ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Defence Minister Judith Collins today announced New Zealand will provide logistics support for the upcoming Solomon Islands election. “We’re sending a team of New Zealand Defence Force personnel and two NH90 helicopters to provide logistics support for the election on 17 April, at the request ...
The European Union Free Trade Agreement Legislation Amendment Bill received Royal Assent today, completing the process for New Zealand’s ratification of its free trade agreement with the European Union. “I am pleased to announce that today, in a small ceremony at the Beehive, New Zealand notified the European Union ...
Public consultation on the terms of reference for the Royal Commission into COVID-19 Lessons has concluded, Internal Affairs Minister Hon Brooke van Velden says. “I have been advised that there were over 11,000 submissions made through the Royal Commission’s online consultation portal.” Expanding the scope of the Royal Commission of ...
Hardworking families are set to benefit from a new credit to help them meet their early childcare education (ECE) costs, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. From 1 July, parents and caregivers of young children will be supported to manage the rising cost of living with a partial reimbursement of their ...
A specialised Independent Technical Advisory Group (ITAG) tasked with preparing and publishing independent non-binding advice on the design of a "green" (sustainable finance) taxonomy rulebook is being established, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. “Comprising experts and market participants, the ITAG's primary goal is to deliver comprehensive recommendations to the ...
Defence Minister Judith Collins has thanked the Chief of Army, Major General John Boswell, DSD, for his service as he leaves the Army after 40 years. “I would like to thank Major General Boswell for his contribution to the Army and the wider New Zealand Defence Force, undertaking many different ...
25 March 2024 Minister to meet Australian counterparts and Manufacturing Industry Leaders Small Business, Manufacturing, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly will travel to Australia for a series of bi-lateral meetings and manufacturing visits. During the visit, Minister Bayly will meet with his Australian counterparts, Senator Tim Ayres, Ed ...
Government commits almost $3 million for period products in schools The Coalition Government has committed $2.9 million to ensure intermediate and secondary schools continue providing period products to those who need them, Minister of Education Erica Stanford announced today. “This is an issue of dignity and ensuring young women don’t ...
Good morning, it’s great to be here. First, I would like to acknowledge the New Zealand Institute of Building Surveyors and thank you for the opportunity to be here this morning. I would like to use this opportunity to outline the Government’s ambitious plan and what we hope to ...
Minister for Pacific Peoples Dr Shane Reti has announced the Government’s commitment to the Auckland Secondary Schools Māori and Pacific Islands Cultural Festival, more commonly known as Polyfest. “The Ministry for Pacific Peoples is a longtime supporter of Polyfest and, as it celebrates 49 years in 2024, I’m proud to ...
Before moving onto the substance of today’s address, I want to recognise the very significant and ongoing contribution the Breast Cancer Foundation makes to support the lives of New Zealand women and their families living with breast cancer. I very much enjoy working with you. I also want to recognise ...
New Zealand has notched up a first with the launch of University of Canterbury research to the International Space Station, Science, Innovation and Technology and Space Minister Judith Collins says. The hardware, developed by Dr Sarah Kessans, is designed to operate autonomously in orbit, allowing scientists on Earth to study ...
Introduction Thank you for inviting me to speak with you today and I’m sorry I can’t be there in person. Yesterday I started in Wellington for Breakfast TV, spoke to a property conference in Auckland, and finished the day speaking to local government in Christchurch, so it would have been ...
The Coalition Government is contributing more than $1 million to support the establishment of an emergency multi-agency coordination centre in Northland. Emergency Management and Recovery Minister Mark Mitchell announced the contribution today during a visit of the Whangārei site where the facility will be constructed. “Northland has faced a number ...
New Zealanders have enjoyed a broader range of voices telling the story of Aotearoa thanks to the creation of Whakaata Māori 20 years ago, says Māori Development Minister Tama Potaka. The minister spoke at a celebration marking the national indigenous media organisation’s 20th anniversary at their studio in Auckland on ...
Commercial catch limits for some fisheries have been increased following a review showing stocks are healthy and abundant, Ocean and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The changes, along with some other catch limit changes and management settings, begin coming into effect from 1 April 2024. "Regular biannual reviews of fish ...
EDITORIAL:The Jakarta Post It happens again and again; indigenous Papuans fall victim to Indonesian soldiers. This time, we have photographic evidence for the brutality, with videos on social media showing a Papuan man being tortured by a group of plainclothes men alleged to be the Indonesian Military (TNI) members. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robyn J. Whitaker, Director of the Wesley Centre for Theology, Ethics, and Public Policy & Associate Professor, New Testament, Pilgrim Theological College, University of Divinity A strange and eclectic range of activities takes place across these few weeks of the year. Some ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Panizza Allmark, Professor Visual & Cultural Studies, Edith Cowan University It’s Easter weekend, which means many of us will be kicking back with the greatest hits on repeat. But whether you’re a boomer, or an ‘80s or ’90s kid, you might be ...
RNZ Pacific Fiji’s Acting Public Prosecutor has filed an appeal against the sentences of former prime minister Voreqe Bainimarama and suspended police chief Sitiveni Qiliho in their corruption case. Bainimarama was granted an absolute discharge for attempting to pervert the course of justice while Qiliho received a conditional discharge with ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Arosha Weerakoon, Senior Lecturer and General Dentist, School of Dentistry, The University of Queensland Casezy idea/Shutterstock How does toothpaste work? What did people use before toothpaste was invented? – Amelia, age 7, Meanjin (Brisbane) Thanks for your ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brett Hallam, Associate professor, UNSW Sydney IM Imagery/Shutterstock Solar SunShot is well named. The Australian government announced today it would plough A$1 billion into bringing back solar manufacturing to Australia, boosting energy security, swapping coal and gas jobs for those ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Dix, Research Fellow in Nutrition & Dietetics, The University of Queensland Easter is the time for chocolate. The shops are full of fantastically packaged and shiny chocolates in all shapes and sizes, making trips to the supermarket with children more challenging ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emma Felton, Adjunct Senior Researcher, University of South Australia Even in a stubborn cost-of-living crisis, it seems there’s one luxury most Australians won’t sacrifice – their daily cup of coffee. Coffee sales have largely remained stable, even as financial pressures have ...
Mining company Trans-Tasman Resources has unexpectedly withdrawn its application for a consent to suck the valuable metals vanadium and titanium from the Taranaki seafloor, as it apparently wagers on the Government’s new fast-track process. It had spent two-and-a-half days putting its case to the Environmental Protection Agency’s decision-making committee, at ...
Contrary to the Associate Minister of Education’s claims, analysis of Healthy School Lunches Programme - Ka Ora, Ka Ako assessments has revealed it provides excellent value for the taxpayer dollar, as a groundswell of public opposition to Government ...
Greenpeace says wannabe Taranaki seabed miner Trans-Tasman Resources is likely banking on Christopher Luxon’s fast-track process to side-step proper scrutiny of its Taranaki seabed mining proposal by bailing out of the Environmental Protection Agency hearing ...
Kiwis Against Seabed mining today slammed Australian owned would-be seabed miner Trans Tasman Resources (TTR) for abandoning its application to the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) to mine the seabed of the South Taranaki Bight. The company ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katie Attwell, Associate Professor, School of Social Sciences, The University of Western Australia Ground Picture/Shutterstock Months after COVID vaccines were introduced in 2021, governments and private organisations mandated them for various groups. Health and aged care workers were among the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Dzurak, Scientia Professor Andrew Dzurak, CEO and Founder of Diraq, UNSW Sydney Diraq For decades, the pursuit of quantum computing has struggled with the need for extremely low temperatures, mere fractions of a degree above absolute zero (0 Kelvin or ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne A national Essential poll, conducted March 20–24 from a sample of 1,150, gave the Coalition a 50–44 lead including undecided, a reversal ...
The Taxpayers’ Union has today made a formal request under the Regulations of the People’s Republic of China on Open Government Information () for information held about how New Zealand Members of Parliament are spending taxpayer ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robert Nelson, Honorary Principal Fellow, The University of Melbourne A Byzantine depiction of the Eucharist in Saint Sophia Cathedral, Kyiv.Jacek555/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA A nasty quarrel arose in the 11th century over what kind of bread should be used in holy ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Patrick Hesp, Professor, Flinders University Patrick Hesp In some parts of Australia, coastal dunes are retreating from the ocean at an alarming rate, as waves carve up the beach and wind blows the sand inland. But coastal communities are largely ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Luke Heemsbergen, Senior Lecturer, Digital, Political, Media, Deakin University With an impressive 60% of the US smartphone market, Apple is undeniably big, but not a clear monopoly. Yet, years of innovation by Apple have effectively given the company its own exclusive ...
Whether you’re facing layoffs or are just an emotional junior staffer, it’s always a good idea to scout out a good crying place before you need it. It’s an incredibly hard time for Wellington. Across the city, thousands of public servants are hearing tough news about redundancies and layoffs. Government ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Miller-Jones, Professor, Curtin University Nuclear explosions on a neutron star feed its jets. Danielle Futselaar and Nathalie Degenaar, Anton Pannekoek Institute, University of Amsterdam, CC BY-SA How fast can a neutron star drive powerful jets into space? The answer, it ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Daryl Adair, Associate Professor of Sport Management, University of Technology Sydney Earlier this week, independent MP Andrew Wilkie accused the AFL of conducting “off the books” illicit drug testing to identify players using substances of abuse, then inappropriately withdrawing them from matches ...
The Government’s announcement that it will scrap plans for a vast marine sanctuary around the Kermadec Islands is ‘shameful’ and will make it impossible for Aotearoa New Zealand to meet its international commitments, says the World Wide Fund for Nature ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Quiggin, Professor, School of Economics, The University of Queensland Shutterstock The federal government has bowed to pressure from the car industry, announcing it will relax proposed emissions rules for utes and vans and delay enforcement of the new standards ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Suzanne Rutland, Professor Emerita, University of Sydney In his latest book, Jewish Life in Medieval Spain, Jonathan Ray focuses on the tumult of the 14th century in Spain – a time of the plague, civil strife and war between the two largest ...
While creating a slate of world-class shows, Whakaata Māori also developed a generation of world-class creatives. Television is an odd word. It mixes the Ancient Greek and Latin languages, and its most literal meaning is “far-off sight”. In the contemporary and living language of te reo Māori, “whakaata” as a ...
Yesterday the UN Security Council passed a resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire in Israel’s war on Gaza. This significant step and the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza prompted an urgent debate in the New Zealand Parliament. Leader ...
The Government’s decision to reduce access to continuous glucose monitors (CGM) not only threatens the lives of children with type 1 diabetes and increases the potential for ‘Dead in Bed’ syndrome, but also threatens the health of their parents an ...
Apples are available year-round, but the wide variety on offer involves intensive scientific research – and large-scale commercialisation. What’s beautiful, red, sweet and crunchy? Tony Martin’s favourite kind of apple: Sassy. The CEO of apple and pear breeding organisation Prevar, Martin’s fondness for Sassy represents professional success as well as ...
Family violence specialist service Shine is calling on employers to stop asking for proof of domestic violence in order for employees to access domestic violence leave. The call comes five years after the introduction of the Domestic Violence ...
The Deputy Chairperson of the Finance and Expenditure Committee is calling for public submissions on the Budget Policy Statement 2024. The Budget Policy Statement 2024 (BPS) sets out the Government's priorities for the 2024 Budget. It explains the approach ...
Brutal government spending cuts that will see the size of the Ministry for Pacific Peoples slashed by 40% will hit Pasifika communities hard, the PSA says. The Ministry has told staff that it is seeking voluntary redundancies, and to redeploy and reassign ...
I live with five people I mostly love, but our different ideas about generosity are starting to really irk me.Want Hera’s help? Email your problem to helpme@thespinoff.co.nzDear Hera,This is a bit of a random one but here goes. I’m 22 and work an OK job (OK meaning I get paid ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Maria Nicholas, Senior Lecturer in Language and Literacy Education, Deakin University Earlier this month, the New South Wales government announced it would roll out programs for gifted students in every public school in the state. This comes amid concerns gifted school ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christopher Rudge, Law lecturer, University of Sydney Massachusetts General Hospital In a world first, we heard last week that US surgeons had transplanted a kidney from a gene-edited pig into a living human. News reports said the procedure was a ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Tombs, Howard Paterson Chair of Theology and Public Issues, University of Otago The 5th-century Maskell panel showing Jesus in a loincloth.British Museum, CC BY-NC-SA When Jesus is shown on the cross, he is almost always depicted wearing a loincloth around ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Panizza Allmark, Professor Visual & Cultural Studies, Edith Cowan University Shutterstock When you think about a red object, you might picture a red carpet, or the massive ruby in the Queen’s crown. Indeed, Western monarchies and marketing from brands such ...
COMMENTARY:Jewish Voice for Peace The UN Security Council passed a resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza on Monday — and for the first time since the beginning of the Israeli military’s genocide of Palestinians, the United States abstained rather than vetoing it. Security Council resolutions are legally binding, ...
Asia Pacific Report A New Zealand investigative journalist and author says the US spy system hosted by the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) appears to be a controversial intelligence system used in global capture-kill operations. Writing a commentary for RNZ News today, Nicky Hager, author of Secret Power, a 1996 ...
While Nicola Willis wouldn’t give any details on its size, she said a package of tax cuts is definitely still coming in this year’s budget, writes Catherine McGregor in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s morning news round-up. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here. ...
The Taxpayers’ Union is welcoming the investigation into the Department of Internal Affairs after it was revealed that the Department’s Chief Executive personally reached out to expedite a DJs passport application. Taxpayers’ Union Campaigns ...
Finance minister Nicola Willis delivers her first budget statement, and unwittingly helps Joel MacManus save his relationship. Nicola Willis strode into the Beehive Theatrette. Around me, on the green foldout seats, were the country’s top business and political journalists. They were all here to see her announce the Budget Policy ...
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BAU @ the MOH.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/434321/covid-19-miq-nurses-concerned-about-staffing-instability-at-border-facilities
Nurses working at managed isolation facilities across the country have raised concerns about staff shortages and instability.
.. The ministry said the matters have been addressed – but many health care professionals working at border facilities disagree.
In a peculiarly bizarre way this is somewhat comforting.
When entropy reigns supreme, and it seems there is nothing and no one who can be trusted there's our systemically dysfunctional Ministry of Health reliably doing what we all know they do best.
Denying, minimising, dismissing and generally disrespecting those at the front line and at the coal face.
In a statement to RNZ, the ministry confirmed all matters identified in the audit had been followed up and addressed.
But that is rejected by two of the country's largest nursing unions, which have hundreds of members working in MIQ facilities.
oh well if only we had a caring and gentle government that has a clear majority to get stuff done.
The problem is not the 'Ministry' the problem is the government. And it seems that the Labour Government is even less inclined to work for their wages then the National Goverment.
I spoke with a nurse a few month back who laughingly stated that the new ventilators had arrived in the country – thanks god – now if we could just train and hire and pay the nurses to man and monitor these ventilators.
Surely any day now – any day now, our Labor overlords are gonna do something about something. I can see someone write an article about how all this time was squandered by people who yet don't suffer the consequences of their actions.
It will only take one slip up for the highly infectious strains to enter the community.
I would go to a 21 day isolation until vaccination is at a high enough level.
I would trust the judgement of the medical staff working in isolation over the MoH.
My main concern is having the testing capability to detect a new strain and to know the period of being infectious.
Now is not the time to ration resources in MIQ. There is only one line of defence and once it is broken the clean up will be immense on many levels.
Except, this isn’t BAU and MoH is not the only Ministry involved in MIQ.
From your link:
It is important to keep the pressure on and the nurses unions, epidemiologists, and other experts are doing a good job at that and in sticking up for their members at the same time. However, the RNZ article was more balanced and the situation appears to be less B & W than your comment suggested 🙂
I think it is important to keep in mind that nobody has the perfect answer/solution/approach and that the situation with Covid is always evolving and changing.
With respect, Incognito, I assume that folks who visit here are more than capable of reading a linked article in its entirety and form their own opinions.
Twenty years of having to deal with the Ministry of Health and its agents over disability issues has left me cynical and disillusioned. Health is about people…and unfortunately our Ministry of Health, as a bureaucracy, seems to forget this basic premise.
The Ministry has form. For years they denied, dismissed and minimised the abuse and neglect of disabled people in MOH funded residential care. Look up the 2013 articles by Kirsty Johnston.
At the same time the Ministry declared open warfare against those people with significant disabilities and the family members who they had chosen to provide the high level of care they need. Or they had no option (other than the potential horrors of residential care) than to have resident family provide the care…because the Ministry of Health refused to fund the advanced personal cares required.
Despite the issue of paying family carers having been heard many times in various legal settings over the past two decades (with our side winning with embarrassing monotony) it was only in April last year, and under 'special' Covid conditions, that my partner has been allowed to pay me as his carer. And we have been reminded by the Ministry this is temporary. Goddess forbid we should ever feel secure.
A quick search on the Natrad webpage and you'll find numerous articles (Many by Catherine Hutton) describing the deep despair of disabled people and their families. Nothing changes for the better because of the culture of the Ministry.
I spent a while over New Years speaking with a midwife. Again, the good folk at Natrad have also kept track over the years as the midwives have battled to gain some level of respect from the funders… the Miserly of Health.
And this midwife was using the same language and expressed the same deep despair that we in the MOH disability community have voiced.
And I'm hearing that same tone from these nurses.
But this time, with Te Virus scratching at our borders, the risks if the Ministry runs true to form will impact the whole community.
Not just the disabled. Not just women and babies.
I make no apologies.
You’d be surprised how many people don’t read any further than a headline 😉
When people read your comment, they may or may not decide to read the linked article, based on your PoV. BTW, this is exactly why tend to insist on links and a brief accompanying commentary as to what to expect and as to why people should read it.
Your views of MoH are well documented here and you have your reasons.
I make no apologies for presenting my take on the same article to which you linked. This does not take away anything at all from your personal experiences of and with MoH. It is about presenting another perspective on the content of the article and a number of voices therein, including those of some nurses, not on MoH as such.
HTH
it is worrying though about the new mutation. Only a matter of time before another outbreak. Trust our health people it manage it, but will likely mean another location
Prior to the more infectious strains the MoH was able to manage Covid – 19. Looking at overseas tends with the newer highly infectious strains I do not have the same level of confidence when it comes to containing a community outbreak.
trends
Hypothetical exchange between Senior Management at a MIQ facility and a Senior Level Bureaucrat at the MOH.
MIQ…."We really need more staff at all levels…."
MOH…."But you're all doing so well! There's absolutely NO community transmission! It's obvious we've got this! Keep it up team!"
MIQ…"But we're all so tired. We've all been at this for months. We need to train up many more people so we can have a break. Some at the frontline are so scared of making a mistake because of exhaustion that stress levels are through the roof. Please approve more funding for more staff."
MOH…. "Look guys…we get this is all very new…but its clear we have hit just the right note here. We don't need to go overboard. All those little niggles that you guys had last October have been dealt to. Look at the paperwork …we have an Action Plan!"
MIQ…"Please. Please…."
I really really hope that when an MIQ worker makes a claim for PTSD or other mental injury that ACC do not piss them about.
MIQ would be like a war zone for some health workers constantly having to be vigilant would be exhausting.
I have not given it much thought as to how safe lab workers are when it comes to processing Covid – 19 samples or contagion in a lab.
They're at fairly low risk.
Their job is working with samples that are presumed to be dangerously pathogenic at all times, not just when there's a pandemic going on. So they've got the mindset, skills and equipment to keep themselves safe.
That is reassuring for lab workers. Skills and equipment make the difference.
A lot of it would be mindset, like security.
(Being purposefully vague to protect the guilty) there was fairly recently a non-medical biohazard facility that was close to losing certification because it had a lot of students screwing up the lab's integrity. Things like opening windows when the air is supposed to be filtered before going back outside, or not wearing lab coats so they're taking stuff outside on their street clothes.
Mind you, seventy years ago people were using potassium cyanide in their spare room or manipulating plutonium cores with screwdrivers instead of the mandated shims, so the mindset has come a long way.
And storing radium in a draw in the laboratory. My cousin who worked at the DSIR Physical Engineering Laboratory in Gracefield tells of the time they were doing a clean-up in the late 50's when they opened a draw they seldom used and found at the back a large sample of radium (I've forgotten how many curies were written on it). He initially worked for Sir Ernest Marsden as a lab tech.
Bit off topic – a question in a recent quiz in ‘The Listener’ reminded me of the once common enough practice of using X-ray Shoe Fitter, Pedoscope and Foot-o-scope devices in shoe shops.
Ancestor of the current shoe store quackery machines.
In kinda related vein, the DDT pump in the pantry, for cockroaches and other pests.
A very bad idea, but oddly enough one that didn't trigger an epidemic of foot cancer either. If there was any radiation harm caused by them, it's buried in the statistical noise.
Besides that wiki article bases it's case on the now very shakey Linear No Threshold (LNT) thesis originally put up by Muller in 1927. While it may have been a useful idea in the early days of nuclear radiation, being the most conservative model possible and could have been justified as a 'precautionary principle', all the real world data since has strongly suggested that in fact all living creatures are constantly bathed in a background radiation that does us no harm at all.
Indeed there are a number of cases where people have lived with substantially higher background radiation levels over long periods, and surprisingly show reduced levels of cancer.
No-one has been able to prove a watertight case either way (nor given the nature of the RCT necessary are they ever likely to), but there are good grounds to think that the LNT thesis is far too conservative and generates perverse outcomes.
Agree 100%, "A very bad idea", exploitative even – kinda why I mentioned it.
An interesting ‘constellation’ or another ‘Covid-bandwagon’?
Low-Dose Radiation to COVID-19 Patients to Ease the Disease Course and Reduce the Need of Intensive Care
https://jnm.snmjournals.org/content/61/12/1724
That is interesting; how on earth did you stumble on that?
You do ask a really worthwhile question; how to tell the difference between a useful result and 'covid bandwagon'. After all a decent RCT trial to put the matter beyond all doubt is simply not going to be available in most cases. Demanding this level of gold standard proof is not always reasonable.
A good comparison can be made with the case made against tobacco smoking and lung cancer, that never rested on anything more than historic observation studies and correlations as far as I’m aware. I doubt anyone ever did a full noise RCT on this (although I could always be wrong).
As time goes on we continue to learn more about COVID, and we find all manner of interesting aspects like the probable role that Vitamin D, Zinc, and Selenium may play. The jury remains noisily deadlocked on Ivermectin, and I'm sure there a few other plays out there I'm unaware of.
One point I need to clarify; it's perfectly possible to be both alarmed at the threat of this disease and at the same time alarmed and disappointed at some of the responses by various medical authorities and governments.
More than anything else we need to stop politicising this; it was a catastrophe for the climate change issue, and will play out no better on this.
About 40 years ago I got given an asbestos circular mat to put hot pots on. I kept it for about a year.
Not sure if all asbestos is harmful.
For all practical purposes, yes, all asbestos is harmful. Your mat was probably made with chrysotile (white asbestos), which is the most common and least hazardous form of asbestos. But that "least hazardous" is kinda like saying ebola is less hazardous than rabies.
The really dangerous route for it to cause harm is when it get turns into dust and you breathe it in. So your mat for hot pots is lowish risk, unless you were in the habit of banging it against a post at about head level to get dust out of it, like a rug.
If it's not getting turned into dust, then it's low risk. That's why the advice is if your house has asbestos in the walls or ceiling or roof, don't worry about it unless you disturb it somehow. Like doing renovations, or cleaning an asbestos cement roof. Then you need the $$$$$ expert$$$$$ to come and deal with it.
Nasal/oral swabs don’t exhale, sneeze or cough on the lab workers. The actual sample is stuck in and onto the bud, which is how it has been designed to work. Unless the lab worker licks their gloved fingers, sucks the bud, or sticks the bud up their own nose by accident, the risks of getting infected are slim.
Do you know how the nasal oral swabs are destroyed?
Also the method to clean the lab equipment. Both could cause contamination. I am not sure how long samples used to test for Covid are stored for either.
Treetop
Incinerator and autoclave respectively. In my memory of biological wastes and laboratory equipment. There would likely be a negative pressure gradient in any lab analyzing SARS-CoV2 too, at least you'd hope so!
Thanks for that. Lab workers are doing a stellar job and would be putting in long hours.
Yup. Liquid waste is treated with special disinfectant. Surfaces are treated with disinfectant too and UV light. All disposable waste is treated as biohazardous medical waste. Much of what is used in the lab is disposable anyway and provided in kits, except the PCR machine 😉
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/covid-19-coronavirus-lockdown-expected-if-uk-or-south-african-variant-found-in-community-expert/ZDZKWHQTJOPBPFGDRKUZW4SRNA/
“Covid 19 coronavirus: Lockdown expected if UK or South African variant found in community.”
Do we really have to wait until it is in the community to lock down. Economically and socially we would be much better off to lock down NOW. Lock all travellers from countries with high rates of Covid.
There is 1 in 30 infected with it in England.
50% of the elderly are dying from it.
Every 36 hours someone breaks the rules in NZ ‘s quarantine !
New Zealanders have had 9 MONTHS to get home.
Time now to take care of NZ especially the people working on our front lines.
It would be much less economically crushing to stop the travellers till things improve than leave it to a point where the NZ community has to go into Lock Downs again to stop a now very virulent disease.
Wakeup, time to stop being SO KIND, for Gods sake !
or else let people come back as they are rightfully entitled to and instead increase staff level, testing, and anyone caught breaking quarantine rules is having the book thrown at them, their name and face printed all over the news – yeah, shame these entitled assholes – and thus also prevent the coming in of a new threat and the spread there of.
Do we really have to wait until it is in the community to lock down?
MIQ transmission is going to happen with the highly infectious strains and when this happens how is it going to be managed for a person on day 12 not in quarantine just isolation?
The government needs to have the MIQ capacity for this senario. Unprepared will be seen as a failure and National will be all over this.
Think that the risk is not just due to the variant that leaks out, but who it leaks to. Greater Brisbane has just been locked down for 3 days because of a cleaner at a quarantine hotel was infected with the UK variant, but despite 50,000 tests, no-one else has been detected with it. Maybe that’s because the cleaner lived alone and wasn’t an outgoing, social person or someone with a large family who she spread it to. Compare the fast transmission that happened with the Auckland cluster and the Melbourne one. One of the new variants is probably going to leak more often from now on though as there is an increasing amount of it and not just in the UK or South Africa.
Yes who it leaks to. As well the cleaner was at the tail end of infection so viral load is an issue.
Stopping people coming in stops the planes coming and likewise restricts a lot of essential imports ( medicines and like,
) coming in and perishable exports going out via airfreight, This is further complicated with our sea ports been already congested. Simply moving to air freight charters is cost prohibitive and not feasible in a highly global and connected world The government needs to view all these factors and risks, not simply taking a myopic health view only
[You’re spouting so much crap here again because you’re full of shit and nothing else.
Our Government is doing what you accuse it of not doing and more and the irony is that you’re the one with the myopic view.
Keep it up and you’ll be flying – Incognito]
Outgoing flights are pretty much empty passenger wise and incoming aren't much better because of the MIQ limits. Repatriation charters and fishing / merchant crew changes a slight exception.
As for profit for the airline, I'd say they are loosing money or just cost recovery on the passengers they carry because of the increased per passenger crew costs with the light loadings.
See my Moderation note @ 4:08 PM.
Sorry I'm usually a lurker here but have to bite.
Red: I assume you are not a health care worker. Have you thought about what would happen if our ICUs become full of the COVID sick? I'm making another assumption about you and I apologise if I'm incorrect but from your posts you sound quite young so I assume when you catch COVID you won't be in a high risk group for complications so won't need to go to hospital.
But, if you are unlucky enough to, say, be critically injured in a car accident or suffer a stroke then you'll be denied access to hospital as it will be full already.
"Myopic" this may be, but once our hospitals are full, plenty of those with non-COVID conditions will also die.
Nice comment Stan, & quite correct.
Given that the new strain is expected to become dominant globally very quickly, how long do you propose we should lock down “NOW”?
https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/new-highly-infectious-covid-19-variant-become-dominant-all-over-world-michael-baker
What do your stats mean? How do they compare to the other older variants, for example? Are you scaremongering?
Are you suggesting that all New Zealanders who’d want it should have come home by now and that the ones who didn’t have only themselves to blame? It reminds of the bene-bashing ‘reasoning’ by National and ACT. Nice!
Do you believe there are no social costs to locking down “NOW”?
What has “being SO KIND” got to do with it? It sounds like a cheap shot to me.
Absolutely.
"New Zealanders have had 9 MONTHS to get home."
Have to confess that crossed my mind too. When it was still relatively easy to come back to NZ they didn't do so. Now that the pandemic outbreak has reached emergency levels in the UK they want to come home and expect the welcoming mat to be laid out for them.
Well, they can come back… when it is safe again and NZ is ready to resume normal services. There will always be exceptions granted for special cases.
I don’t follow Janet or you on this ‘nine month’ issue. MIQ was introduced on 9 April 2020, i.e. nine months ago. It was indeed “relatively easy” to return to NZ before then and many New Zealanders did during that short window. In fact, this was one of the reasons why MIQ was not introduced before 9 April.
This where I am coming from Incognito:
I recall the warnings being issued back in February and March that this pandemic was going to be around for a long time and that it will get a lot worse before it gets better. A vaccine was thought to be at least two years away.
It shouldn't have taken much to conclude that it would be best to get back to NZ as soon as possible… if simply because of our geographical isolation. I was surprised more people didn't take advantage of the "window" while it was available.
I give my parents as an example. My father was in Germany in the mid 1930s and saw with his own eyes the proliferation of munitions factories and the mood of the nation in general. He returned to England and immediately made plans to take his young family out of Britain to somewhere safe. They went to Australia initially then moved on to NZ two years later. They arrived just before WW2 broke out.
At the time of their departure, they were laughed at by family and friends back in England but he was the one who had the last laugh.
I see a similarity between the two situations.
Ok, I think I understand you now, thank you. However, that window of opportunity was a little more than one month or so, not nine months, which means that you and I were thinking of different periods.
Well, I was actually thinking for a longer period – including the start of the mandatory 14 day hotel isolation upon arrival. Over the winter months especially I wouldn't have thought that was too traumatic for most people to handle.
reasons other than self interest for not returning earlier:
That last one applies to two of my siblings. I know another family who the job contract applied to.
It doesn't take much imagination to see that NZers overseas have a range of restrictions on their lives that might prevent them just packing up and coming home.
The precautions are so that we DON'T have to lock down.
Exactly …… you got it ! and only while the Pandemic is RAGING as it is in Britain and USA right now !
This is horrible that a baby has died and someone is obstructing justice / police. Why do they protect these people? Good that the police have arrested the person for providing false information.
Auckland baby homicide: Woman charged with attempting to obstruct justice | Stuff.co.nz
"arborists have inspected the site and made recommendations to undertake work to ensure the vegetation is healthy and safe.
Most of the work involved trimming shrubs back from footpaths, lights or clothes lines".
Lovely to walk footpaths overhung and bordered by trees, lights are unnecessary – if you're afraid of the dark carry a torch – it's called "taking responsibility as an individual for personal safety", clothes lines – it's not direct sunlight but the moisture content of the breeze that determines drying time and a bit of bird shit on the sheets is easily scraped off. Arborists are in business to make money so are looking for reasons to trim and remove, and the tidiness ideology that rules suburbia is enabling them. Tidiness is a huge earner in other ways too of course, supported by "health and safety." regulations.
An untidy, unhealthy and unsafe environment nurtured our human evolution and I owe myself to it – unthinking and ungrateful as others seem to be.
https://i.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/123913689/terminallyill-social-housing-resident-fears-council-will-destroy-her-ecorefuge
That's why we don't have lightbulbs in the house and the kids have to buy batteries for their torches from their allowances, so they learn to take personal responsibility.
the deep-sea fishing industry has struggled to recruit Kiwi workers
Stuff has been massaging the truth about slave fishermen. There is no struggle – the company applies few a few hundred visas without making any remotely credible attempt to train or retain locals, and Immigration just let it happen, never checking up, just as they have for the last forty years.
A better description would be "the industry is too lazy and inept to train and retain kiwi workers, and the corrupt government supports and colludes in their law-breaking."
Nothing to see here – certainly no NZ jobs lost to exploitive practices.
I know you snakes are up to something let roll in the Court system and see what happens Muppets.
Ka kite Ano.