The horror of what the Stevens family is being put through is an obscenity.
The original coroner’s report on the level of care and negligence that led to Nicky Stevens suicide is blistering…
The Waikato District Health Board has been heavily criticised in a coroner’s report into the death of mental health patient Nicky Stevens.
In March 2015, the inpatient at Waikato’s Henry Bennett Centre went outside for a cigarette – and today the coroner confirmed Nicky committed suicide.
Key findings from Coroner Wallace Bain’s report are damning. Most notably, that Nicky’s death could have been avoided.
“It was so bittersweet, so hard to hear that kind of official statement like that,” Jane Stevens, Nicky’s mother, said. “We felt vindicated but devastated at the same time to know that our son, if things had been different would be still with us.”
Among other findings, the report also found that Nicky’s treatment was well below what he and his family would have expected – and that Nicky should not have been allowed to go out unescorted.
“You don’t really expect someone to 100 per cent agree with you like he has,” Dave Macpherson, Nicky’s father, said.
…the disgraceful manner in which the DHB treated Nicky saw his father, Dave Macpherson*, run for the DHB Board and win so that he could demand not only accountability for his sons death, but to ensure this level of negligence never happens again.
So after the enormous battle to hold these ill funded and ill maintained mental health services to account, after winning a huge victory with the coroners report, what does the DHB do?
Why they call for another coroners report so that they won’t have to pay any damages...
The parents of a 21-year-old, whose suicide while in the care of a Waikato mental health facility was ruled avoidable, say they are shocked by the local District Health Board’s (DHB) call for a second coronial inquest.
Nicky Stevens died in March 2015 during a stay at the Henry Rongomau Bennett mental health facility. He was let outside alone, despite his family saying he shouldn’t be left unsupervised.
…how fucking despicable is that?
So they aren’t held accountable for the misery they negligently brought about, the DHB will challenge the report so that they don’t have to pay compensation for a suicide they are responsible for.
This cruelty isn’t new, the head of State Services, Peter Hughes, paid corporate spies to undermine the legal chances of two rape victims to gain compensation from their abuse inside state care. The irony is that this arsehole is leading the inquest into the use of the very corporate spies he used in 2007 now there is a change of Government.
This abuse of people’s rights so that Government Departments can continue abusing them without cost is multi-faceted. We saw it with the meth hysteria, we see it in the double bunked rape pens inside prison and we even saw WINZ attempt to claim loans are income so they can penalise beneficiaries…
MSD is treating loans as income in the courts – Child Poverty Action Group
Borrowed money should not count as income that can reduce benefit entitlements, saysChild Poverty Action Group (CPAG).
In a case being heard in the High Court, the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) is arguing that a sole mother who took out loans to pay for her home repairs and to support her children – because she could not otherwise afford to on the benefit – should have to repay more than $120,000 in so-called ‘over payments’.
This Friday, October 27 is the last day of the hearing. Ms X. has name suppression and is represented by Frances JoyChild QC.
No form Ms X. ever filled out for her benefit asked her to list loans as a form of income. The cost of the nearly eight years of reviews and appeal is huge, both financially and in terms of her health.
“It has created libraries of decisions, exhibits, letters, submissions and court time. To say nothing of the costs of Ms X’s time or her lawyers,” says Associate Professor Susan John, CPAG economics and welfare spokesperson.
“It is very worrying that mothers are treated this way and that MSD takes such a narrow view of the law,” says Associate Professor Susan St John, CPAG economics and welfare spokesperson.
New Zealand currently has a punitive welfare system that reduces support for sole parents who repartner, and applies sanctions to those who do not name a father on benefit applications. In finding loans as declarable income, it further reduces the ability of low-income families to support their children, resulting in deeper and longer term poverty and more unfair prosecutions.
…this wasn’t an isolated case, when asked by the Judge why the MSD was chasing another beneficiary in another ‘fraud’ case, the scum maggot from the Ministry said, ‘in case she wins lotto’!!!!!!!
These public servants are despicable and use their power against the most vulnerable in society.
Labour’s greatest challenge in front of it right now is the ideological right wing arseholes who have taken up residence in our public service. Like cancerous tumours, they have spread their hateful right wing beliefs and infected every inch of what should be a welfare system designed to protect and help rather than punish.
We have seen example after example after example of how these smug vicious arseholes damage and kill the poor they are supposed to serve. Hounding a beneficiary into suicide for a debt that never existed should see those wealthy white Wellington bureaucrats strung up in the town square and lynched!
So where is the Government in all this?
Where’s Jacinda’s ‘Politics of Kindness’ when it comes to arse covering by a DHB trying to hide their role in a suicide? Why is it that the PM can intervene when it’s a #MeToo event yet be so silent when it’s the suicide of a male?
The biggest threat to the vulnerable in NZ is the neoliberal welfare state and it is disgusting that it is allowed to continue unabated.
*Dave Macpherson is TDBs mental health blogger.
Yes, this is staggeringly bad – an affront to human decency, and an affront to democracy, when a bunch of second-rate hicks try to challenge a coroner’s report.
They had their chance at the inquest. Were they muzzled? No. Did they accept the outcome? No, so they are rejecting an established legal process and they want another one.
I don’t have the legal knowledge, but I would have thought that a judicial review would be a more conventional approach if they really thought some sort of miscarriage of justice had occurred.
They are trying to set a dangerous precedent here, and certainly not because they think that Nicky could have been better served – we all know that.
They shame us all.
Nicky’s parents are very brave and persistent !….all of New Zealand admires them and cheers them on!
Under the John Key Nactional government our public health system became underfunded and often very careless and callous in its treatment of New Zealand’s most vulnerable
( was National Party covert aim to privatise the whole system, as in the USA?)
…there were very little checks and balances and accountability…this is still going on it would seem
….the Health and Disability Commission ( now renamed?) must have a lot of cases on its books which it has ignored and swept under the carpet…the people concerned have to live with their consciences
IMO there should be a full opening of the books and a Commission of Inquiry as to what happened to the public hospitals and health system in the John Key National government years, when many New Zealanders died due to negligence and willful lack of care
So this occurred originally under one very dodgy WDHB CEO Nigel Murray( we have seen enough literature on this nasty piece of goods) However he was employed, against very strong advice by one Bob Simcock…(Robert Malcolm Simcock is a New Zealand politician. He was a Member of Parliament for the National Party from 1996 to 2002 and Mayor of Hamilton from 2007 to 2010. Wikipedia) “Simcock was appointed to the health board by then health minister Tony Ryall, replacing Graeme Milne who stepped down after two terms in the job.”
So we know where all the dodging and cover ups originated.
There needs to be an inquiry as to how public employed health professionals cover their tracks
( they are covered by their own public service employed very aggressive lawyers determined to win at all costs…forget about accountability!)
…one such, with previous form working for health professionals, is now shamelessly employed by the Health and Disability Commission
…there is no justice for people seeking accountability for the treatment and deaths of their loved ones at the hands of health professionals
…where is the ACCOUNTABILITY?!…there is none!….and this is shown by the case of Nicky Stevens
This all assume Labour is not part of the problem? Keep in mind the issues with mental health services in NZ are hardly new and have seen both National and Labour govts come and go.
+1 especially, “These public servants are despicable and use their power against the most vulnerable in society.”
What is even worse they often do it while benefiting themselves and their crony mates with more and more money in NZ spent on (often poor quality and very expensive) lawyers and legal actions and more and more right wing consultants and middle men bureaucracy.
Look at Kiwibuild as well, where do you start as the ridiculousness of it, from the current legal action against the former head within a short period of time, to 2/3 of the land being privatised with a so called left government, to the lack of affordable houses they build, but interestingly just HNZ without the bureaucracy of Kiwibuild managed to build a lot more houses!!!
Stop the fuckwittery in the public service from the cruel “call for another coroners report so that they won’t have to pay any damages’ to the stupid waste of money following some right wing Thatcher/Rogernomics agenda aka Kiwibuild…
This just proves again that DHBs are SOE’s being run by the private sector. This is what underfunding does, reliance on private insurance, and the fiscal responsibility act. Mental illness is now a risk not to personal health but to fiscal health. No capitalist government can return the welfare state to what it was in the 60’s they are all too busy fawning over their imperialist masters, US and China. Where is the green socialist party that we need?
It is a great pity older woman Annette King was pushed out from the Labour Party because she was a very fine Minister of Health …compassionate and gutsy and articulate
We need her now to clear up the mess the jonkey Nactional Party left of our New Zealand public health system
There must be accountability for health professionals and publicly funded health systems
…as the case of Nicky Stevens shows , at the moment it would seem that there is no accountability, and health professionals must win at all costs ie with the help of lawyers take no responsibility
….this is why those who can afford to do so, take their cases outside the system to court and sue
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