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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“You talking about me?”The neoliberal denigration of the past was nowhere more unrelenting than in its depiction of the public service. The Post Office and the Railways were held up as being both irremediably inefficient and scandalously over-manned. Playwright Roger Hall’s “Glide Time” caricatures were presented as accurate depictions of ...
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Rob MacCulloch writes – In 2022, the Curriculum Centre at the Ministry of Education employed 308 staff, according to an Official Information Request. Earlier this week it was announced 202 of those staff were being cut. When you look up “The New Zealand Curriculum” on the Ministry of ...
Chris Bishop’s bill has stirred up a hornets nest of opposition. Photo: Lynn Grieveson for The KākāTL;DR: The six things that stood out to me in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, poverty and climate from the last day included:A crescendo of opposition to the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill is ...
Monday left me brokenTuesday, I was through with hopingWednesday, my empty arms were openThursday, waiting for love, waiting for loveThe end of another week that left many of us asking WTF? What on earth has NZ gotten itself into and how on earth could people have voluntarily signed up for ...
Hello! Here comes the Saturday edition of More Than A Feilding, catching you up on the past week’s editions.State of humanity, 20242024, it feels, keeps presenting us with ever more challenges, ever more dismay.Do you give up yet? It seems to ask.No? How about this? Or this?How about this?Full story Share ...
Determining the hardest sport in the world is a subjective matter, as the difficulty level can vary depending on individual abilities, physical attributes, and experience. However, based on various factors including physical demands, technical skills, mental fortitude, and overall accomplishment, here is an exploration of some of the most challenging ...
The allure of sport transcends age, culture, and geographical boundaries. It captivates hearts, ignites passions, and provides unparalleled entertainment. Behind the spectacle, however, lies a fascinating world of financial investment and expenditure. Among the vast array of competitive pursuits, one question looms large: which sport carries the hefty title of ...
Introduction Pickleball, a rapidly growing paddle sport, has captured the hearts and imaginations of millions around the world. Its blend of tennis, badminton, and table tennis elements has made it a favorite among players of all ages and skill levels. As the sport’s popularity continues to surge, the question on ...
Abstract: Soccer, the global phenomenon captivating millions worldwide, has a rich history that spans centuries. Its origins trace back to ancient civilizations, but the modern version we know and love emerged through a complex interplay of cultural influences and innovations. This article delves into the fascinating journey of soccer’s evolution, ...
Tinting car windows offers numerous benefits, including enhanced privacy, reduced glare, UV protection, and a more stylish look for your vehicle. However, the cost of window tinting can vary significantly depending on several factors. This article provides a comprehensive guide to help you understand how much you can expect to ...
The pungent smell of gasoline in your car can be an alarming and potentially dangerous problem. Not only is the odor unpleasant, but it can also indicate a serious issue with your vehicle’s fuel system. In this article, we will explore the various reasons why your car may smell like ...
Tree sap can be a sticky, unsightly mess on your car’s exterior. It can be difficult to remove, but with the right techniques and products, you can restore your car to its former glory. Understanding Tree Sap Tree sap is a thick, viscous liquid produced by trees to seal wounds ...
The amount of paint needed to paint a car depends on a number of factors, including the size of the car, the number of coats you plan to apply, and the type of paint you are using. In general, you will need between 1 and 2 gallons of paint for ...
Jump-starting a car is a common task that can be performed even in adverse weather conditions like rain. However, safety precautions and proper techniques are crucial to avoid potential hazards. This comprehensive guide will provide detailed instructions on how to safely jump a car in the rain, ensuring both your ...
Graham Adams writes about the $55m media fund — When Patrick Gower was asked by Mike Hosking last week what he would say to the many Newstalk ZB callers who allege the Labour government bribed media with $55 million of taxpayers’ money via the Public Interest Journalism Fund — and ...
Note: this blog post has been put together over the course of the week I followed the happenings at the conference virtually. Should recordings of the Great Debates and possibly Union Symposia mentioned below, be released sometime after the conference ends, I'll include links to the ones I participated in. ...
The following was my submission made on the “Fast Track Approvals Bill”. This potential law will give three Ministers unchecked powers, un-paralled since the days of Robert Muldoon’s “Think Big” projects.The submission is written a bit tongue-in-cheek. But it’s irreverent because the FTAB is in itself not worthy of respect. ...
One Could Reduce Child Poverty At No Fiscal CostFollowing the Richardson/Shipley 1990 ‘redesign of the welfare state’ – which eliminated the universal Family Benefit and doubled the rate of child poverty – various income supplements for families have been added, the best known being ‘Working for Families’, introduced in 2005. ...
Buzz from the Beehive A few days ago, Point of Order suggested the media must be musing “on why Melissa is mute”. Our article reported that people working in the beleaguered media industry have cause to yearn for a minister as busy as Melissa Lee’s ministerial colleagues and we drew ...
1. What was The Curse of Jim Bolger?a. Winston Peters b. Soon after shaking his hand, world leaders would mysteriously lose office or shuffle off this mortal coilc. Could never shake off the Mother of All Budgetsd. Dandruff2. True or false? The Chairman of a Kiwi export business has asked the ...
Jack Vowles writes – New Zealand is said to be suffering from ‘serious populist discontent’. An IPSOS MORI survey has reported that we have an increasing preference for strong leaders, think that the economy is rigged toward the rich and powerful, and political elites are ignoring ‘hard-working people’. ...
It appears Nicola Willis is about to pull the rug out from under the feet of local communities still dealing with the aftermath of last year’s severe weather, and local councils relying on funding to build back from these disasters. ...
The Government is making short-sighted changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that will take away environmental protection in favour of short-term profits, Labour’s environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
Labour welcomes the release of the report into the North Island weather events and looks forward to working with the Government to ensure that New Zealand is as prepared as it can be for the next natural disaster. ...
The Labour Party has called for the New Zealand Government to recognise Palestine, as a material step towards progressing the two-State solution needed to achieve a lasting peace in the region. ...
Some of our country’s most important work, stopping the sexual exploitation of children and violent extremism could go along with staff on the frontline at ports and airports. ...
The Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill will give projects such as new coal mines a ‘get out of jail free’ card to wreak havoc on the environment, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
Cuts to frontline hospital staff are not only a broken election promise, it shows the reckless tax cuts have well and truly hit the frontline of the health system, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
The Green Party has joined the call for public submissions on the fast-track legislation to be extended after the Ombudsman forced the Government to release the list of organisations invited to apply just hours before submissions close. ...
New Zealand’s good work at reducing climate emissions for three years in a row will be undone by the National government’s lack of ambition and scrapping programmes that were making a difference, Labour Party climate spokesperson Megan Woods said today. ...
More essential jobs could be on the chopping block, this time Ministry of Education staff on the school lunches team are set to find out whether they're in line to lose their jobs. ...
The Government is trying to bring in a law that will allow Ministers to cut corners and kill off native species, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said. ...
Cancelling urgently needed new Cook Strait ferries and hiking the cost of public transport for many Kiwis so that National can announce the prospect of another tunnel for Wellington is not making good choices, Labour Transport Spokesperson Tangi Utikere said. ...
A laundry list of additional costs for Tāmaki Makarau Auckland shows the Minister for the city is not delivering for the people who live there, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
The Green Party has today launched a step-by-step guide to help New Zealanders make their voice heard on the Government’s democracy dodging and anti-environment fast track legislation. ...
The National Government’s proposed changes to the Residential Tenancies Act will mean tenants can be turfed from their homes by landlords with little notice, Labour housing spokesperson Kieran McAnulty said. ...
Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson is calling on all parties to support a common-sense change that’s great for the planet and great for consumers after her member’s bill was drawn from the ballot today. ...
A significant milestone has been reached in the fight to strike an anti-Pasifika and unfair law from the country’s books after Teanau Tuiono’s members’ bill passed its first reading. ...
New Zealand has today missed the opportunity to uphold the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment, says James Shaw after his member’s bill was voted down in its first reading. ...
Today’s advice from the Climate Change Commission paints a sobering reality of the challenge we face in combating climate change, especially in light of recent Government policy announcements. ...
Minister for Disability Issues Penny Simmonds appears to have delayed a report back to Cabinet on the progress New Zealand is making against international obligations for disabled New Zealanders. ...
The Government’s newly announced review of methane emissions reduction targets hints at its desire to delay Aotearoa New Zealand’s urgent transition to a climate safe future, the Green Party said. ...
The Government must commit to the Maitai School building project for students with high and complex needs, to ensure disabled students from the top of the South Island have somewhere to learn. ...
Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey and his Government colleagues have made a meal of their mental health commitments, showing how flimsy their efforts to champion the issue truly are, says Labour Mental Health spokesperson Ingrid Leary. ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed an important milestone in New Zealand’s hydrogen future, with the opening of the country’s first network of hydrogen refuelling stations in Wiri. “I want to congratulate the team at Hiringa Energy and its partners K one W one (K1W1), Mitsui & Co New Zealand ...
The coalition Government is delivering on its commitment to improve resource management laws and give greater certainty to consent applicants, with a Bill to amend the Resource Management Act (RMA) expected to be introduced to Parliament next month. RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop has today outlined the first RMA Amendment ...
Overseas models for regulating the oil and gas sector, including their decommissioning regimes, are being carefully scrutinised as a potential template for New Zealand’s own sector, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. The Coalition Government is focused on rebuilding investor confidence in New Zealand’s energy sector as it looks to strengthen ...
Emergency Management and Recovery Minister Mark Mitchell has today released the Report of the Government Inquiry into the response to the North Island Severe Weather Events. “The report shows that New Zealand’s emergency management system is not fit-for-purpose and there are some significant gaps we need to address,” Mr Mitchell ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith is today travelling to Europe where he’ll update the United Nations Human Rights Council on the Government’s work to restore law and order. “Attending the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva provides us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while ...
Associate Agriculture Minister, Mark Patterson, formally reopened the world’s largest wool processing facility today in Awatoto, Napier, following a $50 million rebuild and refurbishment project. “The reopening of this facility will significantly lift the economic opportunities available to New Zealand’s wool sector, which already accounts for 20 per cent of ...
Hon Andrew Bayly, Minister for Small Business and Manufacturing At the Southland Otago Regional Engineering Collective (SOREC) Summit, 18 April, Dunedin Ngā mihi nui, Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Ko Whanganui aho Good Afternoon and thank you for inviting me to open your summit today. I am delighted ...
The Government is delivering on its commitment to bring back the Three Strikes legislation, Associate Justice Minister Nicole McKee announced today. “Our Government is committed to restoring law and order and enforcing appropriate consequences on criminals. We are making it clear that repeat serious violent or sexual offending is not ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has today announced four new diplomatic appointments for New Zealand’s overseas missions. “Our diplomats have a vital role in maintaining and protecting New Zealand’s interests around the world,” Mr Peters says. “I am pleased to announce the appointment of these senior diplomats from the ...
New Zealand is contributing NZ$7 million to support communities affected by severe food insecurity and other urgent humanitarian needs in Ethiopia and Somalia, Foreign Minister Rt Hon Winston Peters announced today. “Over 21 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance across Ethiopia, with a further 6.9 million people ...
Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage Paul Goldsmith is congratulating Mataaho Collective for winning the Golden Lion for best participant in the main exhibition at the Venice Biennale. "Congratulations to the Mataaho Collective for winning one of the world's most prestigious art prizes at the Venice Biennale. “It is good ...
The Government is reforming financial services to improve access to home loans and other lending, and strengthen customer protections, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly and Housing Minister Chris Bishop announced today. “Our coalition Government is committed to rebuilding the economy and making life simpler by cutting red tape. We are ...
“China remains a strong commercial opportunity for Kiwi exporters as Chinese businesses and consumers continue to value our high-quality safe produce,” Trade and Agriculture Minister Todd McClay says. Mr McClay has returned to New Zealand following visits to Beijing, Harbin and Shanghai where he met ministers, governors and mayors and engaged in trade and agricultural events with the New ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has completed a successful trip to Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines, deepening relationships and capitalising on opportunities. Mr Luxon was accompanied by a business delegation and says the choice of countries represents the priority the New Zealand Government places on South East Asia, and our relationships in ...
New Zealand is demonstrating its commitment to reducing global greenhouse emissions, and supporting clean energy transition in South East Asia, through a contribution of NZ$41 million (US$25 million) in climate finance to the Asian Development Bank (ADB)-led Energy Transition Mechanism (ETM). Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Climate Change Minister Simon Watts announced ...
The Government is today releasing a list of organisations who received letters about the Fast-track applications process, says RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop. “Recently Ministers and agencies have received a series of OIA requests for a list of organisations to whom I wrote with information on applying to have a ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today announced the appointment of Wellington Barrister David Jonathan Boldt as a Judge of the High Court, and the Honourable Justice Matthew Palmer as a Judge of the Court of Appeal. Justice Boldt graduated with an LLB from Victoria University of Wellington in 1990, and also holds ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford will lead the New Zealand delegation at the 2024 International Summit on the Teaching Profession (ISTP) held in Singapore. The delegation includes representatives from the Post Primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA) Te Wehengarua and the New Zealand Educational Institute (NZEI) Te Riu Roa. The summit is co-hosted ...
A stopbank upgrade project in Tairawhiti partly funded by the Government has increased flood resilience for around 7000ha of residential and horticultural land so far, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones today attended a dawn service in Gisborne to mark the end of the first stage of the ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters will represent the Government at Anzac Day commemorations on the Gallipoli Peninsula next week and engage with senior representatives of the Turkish government in Istanbul. “The Gallipoli campaign is a defining event in our history. It will be a privilege to share the occasion ...
Science, Innovation and Technology and Defence Minister Judith Collins will next week attend the OECD Science and Technology Ministerial conference in Paris and Anzac Day commemorations in Belgium. “Science, innovation and technology have a major role to play in rebuilding our economy and achieving better health, environmental and social outcomes ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon held a bilateral meeting today with the President of the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos Jr. The Prime Minister was accompanied by MP Paulo Garcia, the first Filipino to be elected to a legislature outside the Philippines. During today’s meeting, Prime Minister Luxon and President Marcos Jr discussed opportunities to ...
The Government has announced that $20 million in funding will be made available to Westport to fund much needed flood protection around the town. This measure will significantly improve the resilience of the community, says Local Government Minister Simeon Brown. “The Westport community has already been allocated almost $3 million ...
The Government is proud to support the first ever Repco Supercars Championship event in Taupō as up to 70,000 motorsport fans attend the Taupō International Motorsport Park this weekend, says Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee. “Anticipation for the ITM Taupō Super400 is huge, with tickets and accommodation selling out weeks ...
Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has announced an increase to the Rates Rebate Scheme, putting money back into the pockets of low-income homeowners. “The coalition Government is committed to bringing down the cost of living for New Zealanders. That includes targeted support for those Kiwis who are doing things tough, such ...
The Coalition Government is investing in a project to boost survival rates of New Zealand mussels and grow the industry, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones has announced. “This project seeks to increase the resilience of our mussels and significantly boost the sector’s productivity,” Mr Jones says. “The project - ...
Benefit figures released today underscore the importance of the Government’s plan to rebuild the economy and have 50,000 fewer people on Jobseeker Support, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “Benefit numbers are still significantly higher than when National was last in government, when there was about 70,000 fewer ...
The Government’s commitment to doubling New Zealand’s renewable energy capacity is backed by new data showing that clean energy has helped the country reach its lowest annual gross emissions since 1999, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. New Zealand’s latest Greenhouse Gas Inventory (1990-2022) published today, shows gross emissions fell ...
The Government is bringing the earthquake-prone building review forward, with work to start immediately, and extending the deadline for remediations by four years, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “Our Government is focused on rebuilding the economy. A key part of our plan is to cut red tape that ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and his Thai counterpart, Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin, have today agreed that New Zealand and the Kingdom of Thailand will upgrade the bilateral relationship to a Strategic Partnership by 2026. “New Zealand and Thailand have a lot to offer each other. We have a strong mutual desire to build ...
RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop and Transport Minister Simeon Brown have today announced the Coalition Government’s intention to extend port coastal permits for a further 20 years, providing port operators with certainty to continue their operations. “The introduction of the Resource Management Act in 1991 required ports to obtain coastal ...
Today’s announcement that inflation is down to 4 per cent is encouraging news for Kiwis, but there is more work to be done - underlining the importance of the Government’s plan to get the economy back on track, acting Finance Minister Chris Bishop says. “Inflation is now at 4 per ...
Refreshed health guidance released today will help parents and schools make informed decisions about whether their child needs to be in school, addressing one of the key issues affecting school attendance, says Associate Education Minister David Seymour. In recent years, consistently across all school terms, short-term illness or medical reasons ...
Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones is streamlining high-level oceans management while maintaining a focus on supporting the sector’s role in the export-led recovery of the economy. “I am working to realise the untapped potential of our fishing and aquaculture sector. To achieve that we need to be smarter with ...
Associate Agriculture Minister Mark Patterson is speaking at the International Wool Textile Organisation Congress in Adelaide, promoting New Zealand wool, and outlining the coalition Government’s support for the revitalisation the sector. "New Zealand’s wool exports reached $400 million in the year to 30 June 2023, and the coalition Government ...
The Government is making legislative changes to make it easier for new early learning services to be established, and for existing services to operate, Associate Education Minister David Seymour says. The changes involve repealing the network approval provisions that apply when someone wants to establish a new early learning service, ...
Changes to the Resource Management Act will align consenting for coal mining to other forms of mining to reduce barriers that are holding back economic development, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. “The inconsistent treatment of coal mining compared with other extractive activities is burdensome red tape that fails to acknowledge ...
Trade, Agriculture and Forestry Minister Todd McClay has concluded productive discussions with ministerial counterparts in Beijing today, in support of the New Zealand-China trade and economic relationship. “My meeting with Commerce Minister Wang Wentao reaffirmed the complementary nature of the bilateral trade relationship, with our Free Trade Agreement at its ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon today paid tribute to Singapore’s outgoing Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. Meeting in Singapore today immediately before Prime Minister Lee announced he was stepping down, Prime Minister Luxon warmly acknowledged his counterpart’s almost twenty years as leader, and the enduring legacy he has left for Singapore and South East ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon held a bilateral meeting today with Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. While in Singapore as part of his visit to South East Asia this week, Prime Minister Luxon also met with Singapore President Tharman Shanmugaratnam and will meet with Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong. During today’s meeting, Prime Minister Luxon ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Giovanni E Ferreira, NHMRC Emerging Leader Research Fellow, Institute of Musculoskeletal Health, University of Sydney Last week in a post on X, owner of the platform Elon Musk recommended people look into disc replacement if they’re experiencing severe neck or back pain. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Hayward, Emeritus Professor of Public Policy, RMIT University anek.soowannaphoom/Shutterstock NSW Treasurer Daniel Mookhey caught the headlines yesterday, courtesy of a blistering speech condemning the latest GST carve-up. New South Wales, he claimed, would be A$11.9 billion worse off over the ...
While police are "broadly in favour", the government's proposed anti-gang laws are facing pushback from lawyers, rights groups and former gang members. ...
By Miriam Zarriga in Port Moresby Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has arrived at Kokoda Station, Northern province, at the start of his state visit to Papua New Guinea. Both Albanese and Prime Minister James Marape will meet with the locals and the Northern Provincial government before they begin their ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Chris Wallace, Professor, School of Politics Economics & Society, Faculty of Business Government & Law, University of Canberra Shutterstock An important principle was invoked by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese last week in defence of the government’s Future Made in Australia industry ...
By Patrick Decloitre, RNZ Pacific correspondent French Pacific desk Security forces reinforcements were sent from France ahead of two rival marches in the capital Nouméa today, at the same time and only two streets away one from the other. One march, called by Union Calédonienne party (a component of the ...
A poll last August found that just 16% of New Zealanders oppose bringing back the ‘Three Strikes’ law. The nationwide poll of 1,000 New Zealanders was commissioned by Family First NZ and carried out by Curia Market Research. ...
The solo show from Ana Scotney is both sprawling and intimate, and a must-see, writes Mad Chapman. In the opening moments of Scattergun: After the Death of Rūaumoko, writer and performer Ana Scotney lays out the groundwork, literally. Silently moving around the square stage, Scotney is not so much dancing ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kate Burridge, Professor of Linguistics, Monash University Who makes the words? Why are trees called trees and why are shoes called shoes and who makes the names? – Elliot, age 5, Eltham, Victoria Good question Elliot! Let’s start with ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Duckett, Honorary Enterprise Professor, School of Population and Global Health, and Department of General Practice and Primary Care, The University of Melbourne at amRawpixel.com/Shutterstock Roles of health professionals are still unfortunately often stuck in the past. That is, before the ...
COMMENTARY:By Malcolm Evans Last week’s leaked New York Times staff directive, as to what words can and cannot be used to describe the carnage Israel is raining on Palestinians, is proof positive, since those reports are published verbatim here in New Zealand, that our understanding of the conflict is ...
In the case of New Zealand, the results confirm that there is no popular support for the vicious austerity program being imposed by the National Party-led government, which is backed in all fundamental respects by the opposition Labour Party. ...
The ‘Vampire’ singer has never visited our part of the world, but that might all be about to change. We assess the evidence.Olivia Rodrigo’s Guts World Tour is pulling in massive crowds as it whips around the US and Europe, even helping to catapult regular supporting act Chappell Roan ...
Testing of drinking water in rural Canterbury over the weekend by Greenpeace revealed that several public town supplies were reaching levels of nitrate above 5 mg/L - the threshold which a growing body of scientific evidence has linked to increased ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rohan Fisher, Information Technology for Development Researcher, Charles Darwin University It may come as a surprise to hear 2023 was Australia’s biggest bushfire season in more than a decade. Fires burned across an area eight times as big as the 2019–20 Black ...
Responding to the Government’s announcement of changes to resource management laws, Taxpayers’ Union Executive Director, Jordan Williams, said: “These changes are a step in the right direction in terms of removing ideological and unworkable ...
More than two years after the Human Rights Council called for the establishment of a national human rights commission, such a body has yet to be formed. ...
Comment:An emergency management system with wide variations in performance, significant capability gaps, funding shortfalls and above all a setup that is not meeting the needs of New Zealanders at times of crisis. The Government’s inquiry into the response to Cyclone Gabrielle and other severe weather events in the North ...
Welcome to the whirring wonders of one brain trying to align its actions with its beliefs within a system it thinks is evil. My brain has been spiralling in a woke conundrum ever since I found out a bookshop I’ve never been to was shutting down. Good Books, a bookshop ...
We repeat our call for criminal justice policy to be based on evidence, something the three strikes regime neglects to recognise – with no evidence that it either reduces crime or assists with rehabilitation. ...
By Koroi Hawkins, RNZ Pacific editor in Honiara With only four more seats in the 50-member Parliament yet to be officially declared, there is no outright winner in the Solomon Islands elections. As of Monday, the two largest blocs in the winner’s circle, independents and the incumbent Prime Minister Manasseh ...
Two/fiftyseven is a multi-purpose space hidden in the heart of Wellington that is paving a way for sustainable building and responsible landlording in Aotearoa and beyond.By 2060 the world is predicted to double its entire building stock, which equates to building an entire New York City every 34 days, ...
Popstars wasn’t just a reality television revolution, it was also a huge moment for Y2K fashion.It’s 25 years since girl group TrueBliss was formed on New Zealand national television, breaking new ground for both the reality television industry and the shiny clothing industry. With the first episode on NZ ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christopher Pepping, Associate Professor in Clinical Psychology, Griffith University Marvin / Shutterstock Are all single people insecure? When we think about people who have been single for a long time, we may assume it’s because single people have insecurities that make ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By William Geary, Lecturer in Quantitative Ecology & Biodiversity Conservation, The University of Melbourne Trismegist san, Shutterstock Landscapes that have escaped fire for decades or centuries tend to harbour vital structures for wildlife, such as tree hollows and large logs. But these ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rebecca Gladstone-Gallagher, Lecturer in Marine Science, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau Shutterstock/S Curtis Why are we crossing ecological boundaries that affect Earth’s fundamental life-supporting capacity? Is it because we don’t have enough information about how ecosystems respond to change? Or ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Matthew Crocker, PhD Student in Economics, Deakin University Here’s something for the board of the Reserve Bank of Australia to ponder as it meets next month to set interest rates. It has pushed up rates on 13 occasions since it began its ...
As part of our series exploring how New Zealanders live and our relationship with money, a charity director outlines how she’s saving for retirement and buying secondhand. Want to be part of The Cost of Being? Fill out the questionnaire here.Gender: Female Age: 45 Ethnicity: Pākehā Role: Charity director, mum of ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sophie Yates, Research Fellow, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University Many Australians with disability feel on the edge of a precipice right now. Recommendations from the disability royal commission and the NDIS review were released late last year. Now a ...
It’s been called a failed experiment and a judicial straightjacket but the government says the revised three strikes law will be a more workable regime, writes Anna Rawhiti-Connell in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s morning news round-up. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here. Three ...
New Zealand’s Palestinian community and Palestinian Youth Aotearoa are voicing alarm and disappointment with the lack of factual rigour present during the Israeli Ambassador’s appearance as a guest on TVNZ’s Q+A With Jack Tame Sunday (21/04). ...
Both ACT leader David Seymour, who played a key role in drawing up the assisted dying law, and hospice leaders say it's time the legislation was changed. ...
Public submissions on proposed gang control laws are being heard today. Rising gang membership has been cited as rationale for a crackdown – but what do we actually know about how many people belong to gangs in New Zealand?What’s all this then?A rise in the number of gang ...
Climate activists are setting their sights on an unpopular target, and hoping to bring lots of the public with them. It’s hard to miss the Majestic Princess: the enormous cruise ship, docked at Auckland’s Prince’s Wharf, looms over the nearby buildings. The ship, which can fit nearly 6,000 people, ...
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The following korero between Ngāhuia te Awekōtuku, author of the newly published memoir Hine Toa, one of the year’s most important books, and Dale Husband from e-tangata, was first published in October. It traverses her involvement with the activist group Ngā Tamatoa at Auckland University in the early 1970s, her ...
In the 16 years since it was bought by the government for $690 million, KiwiRail has had several overhauls and turnaround plans worth billions of dollars. Its ambitions as a successful, profitable operator of tourism, freight and ferries have often been derailed by disasters from earthquakes to cyclones, mine explosions ...
Black Ferns trailblazer Kendra Cocksedge was on the verge of tears when her young protégé, Hannah King, unassumingly broke the news. Three-time Rugby World Cup winner Cocksedge and Lincoln agriculture student King meet every few weeks over a hot chocolate, in an enduring mentorship that’s spanned years. “Before we even ...
Opinion: We’ve kicked the tyres on the perception NZ’s economy is in a parlous state compared to Australia. We take a quick tour of relative trends in GDP, housing markets, labour markets, trade, the fiscal situation, and the outlooks for inflation and interest rates. We find the cyclical positions of ...
Opinion: Making sure developers, local and central government, and landowners are all on the same page makes sense The post A new kind of city deal appeared first on Newsroom. ...
By Russell Palmer, RNZ News digital political journalist New Zealand’s Foreign Minister Winston Peters is putting off recognition of Palestine as a state, despite opposition Labour’s formal request that he make the move. Peters said diplomatic recognition of Palestine was a matter of “when not if”, but doing so now ...
The opposition has laid into the government's plan to reintroduce a "three strikes" regime, saying it's inequitable and there's very little evidence it works. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rob Nicholls, Senior research associate, University of Sydney Australia’s eSafety Commissioner has ordered social media platform “X” (formerly known as Twitter) to remove graphic videos of the stabbing of Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel in Sydney last week from the site. The incident ...
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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.