Waikato DHB’s announcement this morning that it is halting its appointment process for a permanent CEO “due to current challenges facing the Board” is further evidence that the bad publicity arising from their attempt to reopen the Nicky Stevens Coronial process is causing a chaotic leadership situation in the organisation.
The DHB Board was right in the middle of the final stages of their appointment process to replace disgraced former CEO Nigel Murray, including its final shortlisting of applicants, when it made this morning’s announcement.
Nicky Stevens’ mother Jane Stevens said “As well as causing significant upset for our whanau, their decision has now caused chaos in their own internal appointment process, right at the time they desperately needed to draw a line under their problems and to start moving forward.”
“We hope that this delay has been caused by wiser heads in Government intervening temporarily to ensure some sensible outcomes are arrived at in our son’s case.”
“We desperately need good leadership for the DHB,” she said.
Dave Macpherson is TDBs mental health blogger
Good grief, I understand your strong feelings about injustice and so, but this hope for the DHB to sort its shit out, and for a new CEO to perhaps be ‘kinder’, that is all just naive dreaming.
As I commented before on a post by Chris Trotter, the State Services Act needs to be changed, so that Ministers can hold their CEOs more accountable, as long as the law is as it stands, NOTHING significant will change, perhaps some empty words of ‘sympathy’ for your grief may be expressed, all else will carry on as per usual.
So is the government going to change the law?
Are health authorities suddenly going to be held accountable?
They can relax, Waikato Districts DHB and all others, and their CEOs, the HDC Act remains in place, so any complaints are unlikely to lead to much in consequences for health professionals and their service delivery services. The HDC only investigates a tiny number of complaints, the Medical Council and Nursing Council and so do as authorities usually wait for the HDC to first make a ‘decision’, and do rather little afterwards, and all can hide behind the legislation as it is, as it is like a huge Swiss Cheese, full of holes you can drive a truck through.
https://nzsocialjusticeblog2013.wordpress.com/2016/03/28/how-the-hdc-throws-out-valid-complaints-and-protects-code-breaching-health-professionals-a-true-story/
https://nzsocialjusticeblog2013.wordpress.com/2015/10/04/how-the-n-z-health-and-disability-commissioner-let-off-a-biased-designated-doctor/
http://nzsocialjusticeblog2013.wordpress.com/2014/05/27/health-and-disability-commissioner-can-we-trust-in-hdc-independence/
The decision by the DHB means, the present CEO will for time being stay in place, and he is untrustworthy, as you appear to have found out. There are forces behind the scenes at work. And they want a white wash result, not the one that was presented recently.
Most people are busy with their lives, and hence this only gets much attention here (at least), a brief mention on RNZ, but other media do not seem to bother reporting anyway, leaving most out there uninformed.
The situation in the health sector, the disability services sector, it is complex, the law is complex, and most Kiwis hate complex and complicated things, and never get a grip of what really goes on and what the problem is.
A battle leading to nothing, I fear.
Comments are closed.