Nicky Stevens’ grieving family gutted by Waikato DHB’s demand to Govt for a completely new inquest into his death, and removal of previous Coroner
Suicide victim Nicky Stevens’ whanau has today been sent a letter from the Solicitor-General’s office stating that Waikato DHB has called for an entirely new Inquest and new Coroner to reinvestigate Nicky’s death while in the DHB’s care.
“We are left absolutely reeling”, said Nicky’s mother Jane Stevens.
“This has really knocked us for a six.”
“We waited three and a half years for the first inquest and we just can’t imagine having to go through another one.”
“We’ve never heard of a challenge like this to a Coronial Inquest – they must have something awfully big to hide!”
Inquests are excruciatingly hard on families and Nicky’s was particularly difficult because it was drawn out for so long and was made so adversarial by the DHB and psychiatrist’s lawyers.
“Now our son’s death has become a legal circus all over again, with the DHB prepared to pump more huge amounts of taxpayers’ money into overturning the Coroners findings just because they refuse to accept any accountability.”
“It’s outrageous,” she said. “It feels like they are going to go to the ends of the earth to try and get out of accepting their role in our son’s death.”
Nicky’s father Dave Macpherson said, “The DHB have been totally disingenuous in their dealings with us. CEO Derek Wright told us to our face in a meeting at our home in December that they wanted to settle with us quickly and cleanly, and that while they had a few procedural issues with the Inquest process, these would not stop the settlement process”.
“Our whanau needs to heal, and to be able to let our boy lie in peace. This continual denial, in the face of all the evidence and the independent findings, is just prolonging our agony, and it’s impacting on our own health and wellbeing”.
“It feels like our whanau are being punished for standing up and speaking out when it’s very clear that the mental health system is failing many families.”
“That’s come through loud and clear in the Mental Health Inquiry; our son’s case is a prime example of those failures.”
“Everyone except Waikato DHB seems to be acknowledging the need for change and for learning from their mistakes. Why is it so hard for them to acknowledge they stuffed up?” he added.
Stevens and Macpherson wrote to the Prime Minister late last week after being told of the DHB’s then minor complaints about the Coronial process. They told the Prime Minister they no longer trusted the DHB and asked for an independent mediator to be appointed to help the parties reach resolution.
“This latest action, hidden from us for two weeks, makes the intervention of the Prime Minister even more important,” Jane Stevens finished.
Dave Macpherson is TDBs mental health blogger
Waikato DHB another mess someone needs to get the boot from this lot fancy them putting this family through more shit why don’t they just settle and be done with instead of putting these people through the wringer.
“Government is being stymied by bureaucrat’s bent on revenge over health care, transport, and trades training finally laid bare on tv3’s Duncan Garner am show today”.
Watching Duncan Garner’s am show today we witnessed our own issues being attacked by Duncan over the mindless over reaching autocratic manner of government departments now being controlled by staff who seem to be bent only on revenge rather than solving solutions to benefit public issues of health and other services today.
Firstly we saw salvation army releasing their “state of the nation” report “ that showed that Jacinda’s vision of a “Kinder gentler caring Government is not being nurtured by the bureaucrats who still have an iron grip on government departmental policies.
Salvation Army report that the gap between rich and poor is still becoming worse with household debt still rising while the use of P is alarmingly still increasing amount our young.
Next subject was with Labour’s talented PM Chris Hipkins as Minister of education discussing the worsening of our trades shortages and his plan is to make the education of early trades skills more ‘seamless’ in our schools as he wants an early school integration into trade skills made free to all at school level, I went through school during the 1950-60 era and all woodwork and mechanical training was taught us as a skill we needed to have for our life skills, so why was it scrapped then?
Next was the sad story of the case of young Nicky McPherson who was under the care of a health facility in Hamilton and was left un-attended when he walked out of the facility and committed suicide, and this worried me greatly as now the Health Department is demanding another official review of the case even though the family had successfully made a claim against the health department.
All these cases that are our mirror into how the bureaucrat’s control our public services are showing that the bureaucrats are causing problems and public concern for the government now as they are slowing down progress from the past autocratic government of national Government into Labour Government’s stated transition to become a kinder gentler caring Government.
Transport issues are also under the spotlight today over the lack of the ‘Kinder gentler caring Government’ vision and services.
We in our long fight for better land transport options are having a similar problem with NZTA (the roading controlling agency) (RTA) as this agency are after 19 yrs is still holding their iron autocratic grip over the current government by not giving any care for a ‘fair kinder, caring mitigation’ to residential communities all-over NZ who are now adversely affected by rising truck freight movements causing noise, vibration and air pollution into their homes everywhere as NZTA is effectively actively forcing truck convoys to use roads through many sensitive residential zones today and Auckland is an example where large 4 metre high concrete noise barriers are being placed all over Auckland now but not in very many other regions sadly.
So powerful have past government’s made this road agency, that they have changed the regulatory rules of the RMA and the ‘NZ Standards’ to lower noise standards in NZ regarding ‘road traffic noise levels’ to where NZ has some of the ‘lowest protections’ for all residential communities now.
Evidence of this is shown here,
The noise, (sound pressure) measurement is only measured in a single (dBA) descriptor (now considered improper) as their standard used is regarded as insufficient for low frequencies emitted from trucks as (industrial activities) so they refuse to use guidelines set in this globally accepted symposium. “https://www.acoustics.asn.au/conference_proceedings/ICA2010/cdrom-ICA2010/papers/p987.pdf
In this study report it states; “Relying on traditional A-weighted measurements will not capture the modulation nor would it offer the potential to distinguish engine brakes from other traffic noise.”
NZTA is simply being seen publicly now as a ‘truck transport agency’ (not a ‘transport agency’ as the press often referred to it as) and we now suggest if Government want to succeed with the vision of being a “Kinder gentler caring Government” they need to remove being stymied by bureaucrat’s bent on revenge of the public seeking a kinder gentler service and we urge the ‘Labour coalition Government to now get involved’.
Not finding much sanity? That’s because it doesn’t exist.
Outrageous. Not only is this an abuse of bureaucratic power, but a waste of taxpayers money. The head of the Waikato DHB must be sacked.
This is unacceptable!!
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