Ministry of Health apologises for confusion over Suicide Prevention Office’s future
The Ministry of Health said it did not sufficiently brief the Minister of Mental Health on their restructuring plans and is committed to working on suicide prevention.
RNZ understands the ministry is proposing to cut 134 jobs to meet the government’s demands to reduce costs.
The Public Servants Association (PSA) released a press release on Thursday that claimed this also included shutting the Suicide Prevention Office.
Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey has since stepped in and told the Director-General of Health he expected the office to stay open.
In a statement released this evening, Deputy Director General, Clinical Community and Mental Health, Robyn Shearer said the minister has stated his expectation that the Suicide Prevention Office remains open.
“As a result, we are developing options to work through with the minister early next week.”
Shearer said they acknowledge they did not sufficiently brief the Minister of Mental Health on their change proposals.
“The ministry is sorry for the confusion that this has caused.
“Mental health, addiction and suicide prevention are health system priorities.”
This is damage control because Doocey is in real danger here.
National said they would go through each line of expenditure to cut all the ‘fat’ Labour had ‘splurged’ on.
Remember, ‘splurging’ meant the State stepping in during a once in a century pandemic to save 20 000 lives!
So National claimed they would go through line by line to cut the ‘fat’.
The truth is they are lazy fucks and they sure as Christ don’t want their fingerprints over anything that cuts front line services, so they’ve left it with the ministries to do all the dirty work for them.
Remember, National need to find these savings to afford a $2.9billion tax break for the richest landlords and $16billion in tax cuts we can’t afford.
So National have left the Ministries with the job to find cuts and the Ministries are responding by cutting in the most sensitive places.
That is what happened in the Disabilities sector, it has happened again in the Mental Health sector.
The trouble here is that my sources tell me that Doocey was told about these cuts and the hundred OIAs that have just been lodged will discover he knew about it and will face an immediate call to resign.
What should shock people more is how tiny this Suicide Prevention Taskforce was BEFORE the cuts, to pretend retaining 2 or 3 staff equals an effective use of money to the enormity of harm suicide causes is pure bullshit.
Doocey is in trouble. The evidence he was told will be exposed, the game he has to play now is one of semantics, that he was told but that the enormity of that decision wasn’t explained.
This game of the Ministry ‘informing’ their Minister of the cuts without actually explaining what that will mean in reality will be repeated endlessly as Ministers slash and burn Ministries that become openly hostile to them.
This is just the start.
One way the Government can combat against hostile Ministries is blind them altogether.
The Government are now pushing to hide the stats on child poverty so that they can’t be criticised when the numbers rise sharply…
Stats NZ scraps survey gathering key child poverty data
…Remember, their plan to take money for the richest will already push 13 000 children into poverty…
Officials warn up to 13,000 children will be pushed into poverty as a result of benefit changes
Officials have warned the Government the number of children living in poverty will likely increase by 7000 in four years as a result of benefit changes being rushed through Parliament.
One estimate warns that as many as 13,000 extra children will be in poverty by 2028 thanks to the Government’s changes.
…so we have active blinding of the measurement of poverty at a time when the Right are taking from hungry children to put into the stuffed pockets of the richest landlords!
If you are not angry, you are not paying attention!
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Excellent work @ Martyn Bradbury.
Now let’s see what RNZ makes of this?
MARTYN Stop calling it a TAX BREAK.
“Remember, National need to find these savings to afford a $2.9billion tax break for the richest landlords ”
IT IS A DEBT SUBSIDY FROM THE STATE for wealthy landlords to hoard more houses.
Incredibly, the Mental Health Minister Doocey, said,” How did you find me? “ to the journo who tracked him down seeking clarification about this shocking fiasco. Looks as if Matt was hiding the way that playful children and sick cats do. Or he may have been seeking a dispassionate comment upon his own health if he is uncertain as to how he is.
Saint Jacinda did so much better when she was in charge of child poverty
So thats it? You slated her for that, but now your coalition of a’holes are in and quite happy to make things worse while saying the opposite is quite ok. People voted for change remember? That’s the vomit we are fed by this mob.i guess, change meant make things worse.
Let’s see what the OIA digs up, interesting days ahead.
Of course he knew. He denied it when the union issued a press release. This government is so drunk on its own power that they think they are invincible. Good job that he’s in trouble because wouldn’t you think a very first minister of mental health would be all over the portfolio. Reti should go to he’s fast becoming the invisible minister of health like Ponticus Pilot washing his hands of these dreadful health decisions
Not to forget Melissa Lee. Can’t be bothered to step up and do her job. A complete clown show getting worse by the day.
The question should be ‘Will MoH bosses survive?’ If I was the minister , I would not only reject that hollow apology after that deliberate sabotage attempt, I was also direct MOH to find all those savings exclusively at managerial levels, from the very top down, be it by harsh salary cuts or chopping layers and layers of overpaid ‘managers’. Our public service is like the fucking Kremlin.
So you accept that if Doocey new all along he must resign Jonzie? There will be no excuse for lying.
Where is the proof he lied. It is the Ministry that is apologizing. Using mental patients to score political points is a low ball.
You are good at putting words in people’s mouths. That’s how you operate, to get responses you wanna hear. No you dick, and you can read it again, I clearly stated that it was sabotage from the MOH officials – he didn’t know! That’s why he needs to chop some senior heads off to let them know who is in charge….fucking Kremlin burocrats, who do they think they are.
Trevor and Jonzie in particular, don’t be triggered. I used the word “If” he knew and yet there you go with your regular right wing bile, using Hitler tactics to “chop peoples heads off”. Who do you think you are? As to Martyn’s comment…
“The trouble here is that my sources tell me that Doocey was told about these cuts and the hundred OIAs that have just been lodged will discover he knew about it and will face an immediate call to resign.
Doocey is in trouble. The evidence he was told will be exposed, the game he has to play now is one of semantics, that he was told but that the enormity of that decision wasn’t explained.”
So next time simply answer my question rather than going off on a right wing wankfest.
Here we go. When it’s Labour it’s their incompetence ( which was fair a lot the time) but under these wankers it’s all the public services fault. Pull the other one Jonzie. Face it these guys are muppets.
When the Government Ministers are clearly out of their depth like the Labour Government Ministers we’re then it’s fair to criticise them because it’s fact.
The electorate of New Zealand new that and dealt them a hiding at the election.
So Bob you are saying that Doocey is a liar and not out of his depth then? That’s a better state of affairs for you then? You just talk rubbish.
Bob’s facts?
Thanks for your endorsement chaps.
The dementia ward called, please come back Bob.
” If you are not angry, you are not paying attention ”
Bomber that anger walked into the polling booth on October 14th last year and delivered what we have now.
Many more people are not just angry they are disgusted and did not vote for electing the same interchangeable people every three years who insist that the neo liberal market economy can deliver the results and change that is overdue and desperately needed.
Its just set wash repeat over and over again.
As Muldoon commented privately to a Ambassador in 1983 regarding the coming economic crisis ” Mr Ambassador I don’t know how we ( New Zealand ) are going to get out of this !
Thanks to Roger Douglas we did.
Roger Douglas, a far right wing propagandist, no wonder you love him Bob.
Saved New Zealand from an economic collapse,at the time he was a Minister in the Labour Government,some distance from a right wing propagandist.
“will Doocey survive OIA fallout?”
Hopefully not, as he’s one of the current government’s dopier ministers.
So many to choose from equanimouse.
With this government being responsible for thousands of job losses, any resulting suicides can be directly attributed to them. Shutting down suicide intervention programs is insane.
Also Doocey is being smoked out about his time at the butcher shop the Tavistock clinic and the MOH doing nothing in light of the WPATH and CASS reports … watch this space