How would the Auckland Regional Public Health Service have handled a typhoid outbreak in a rich suburb like Remuera?
Hello, I have no idea what is happening
Jesus wept! Where does one even begin with the horror handling by the Auckland Regional Public Health Service of the typhoid outbreak that is currently raging amongst Auckland’s Pacific Island community?
The list of cock ups is just extraordinary…
- ARPHS still don’t know who patient zero is
- ARPHS got the wrong Church meaning people were panicked when they weren’t exposed and left those who had been exposed to spread the disease.
- The woman who died wasn’t even diagnosed until a week after she died.
- The Minister of Health only found out through the media.
- 18 people have now been hospitalised and with such a weak grasp of the situation those numbers can jump up.
…one gets the terrible feeling that if this typhoid outbreak had occurred in a richer, whiter suburb then these types of blunders would not have occurred.
I believe that what we are seeing is the result of 9 years of severe underfunding in Public Health where Community health outreach is always the first budget to get cut. Consider the following…
- Over the last 3 terms of the National Government, public health has been underfunded by $1.85 billion.
- Staff levels only increased by 2.7% in the last three years when population increased by 5.7%.
- 9 in 10 people working in health felt they didn’t have the staff or resources to provide New Zealanders with the care they need.
…National have underfunded our public health system the way they have underfunded our social welfare infrastructure, our housing infrastructure, our public transport infrastructure, our public broadcasting infrastructure and our public education infrastructure.
No wonder 54% of NZers support a Labour led Government this election.
” The Minister of Health only found out through the media.”
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Seems there’s a lot of that going round among these neo liberal govts – basically the same shitty excuse as we had from Mapp about Afghanistan.
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But what really takes the cake about these self serving neo liberals and their shit crap ideology is THIS sort of thing :
* Over the last 3 terms of the National Government, public health has been underfunded by $1.85 billion.
* Staff levels only increased by 2.7% in the last three years when population increased by 5.7%.
* 9 in 10 people working in health felt they didn’t have the staff or resources to provide New Zealanders with the care they need.
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There should be NO promises of tax cuts AT ALL by this National govt until this sort of bullshit is rectified.
Along with the housing crisis.
Along with our social welfare infrastructure.
Along with our our public transport infrastructure.
Along with our public broadcasting infrastructure.
Along with our public education infrastructure.
In short , – EXACTLY as Martyn Bradbury has pointed out.
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AND BTW – here’s one more for the list : an amendment in the laws regarding certain company’s being used to muzzle legitimate political debate by attacking online blogsites in this country.
It’s a very comforting thought that if there were some sort of serious contagion outbreak, we’d all die choking on our own blood while paper-shufflers ran the numbers and ummed and ahhed about what to tell the media.
Some years ago, in 2010 in fact, at what I call to this day Cuppagate the then pm of NZ John Key is recorded as saying to John Banks ‘The older population is dying off and so less votes for Winston…”
Here we have it. A lower income poor and Pacific Island family lost a loved one to typhoid. If this had happened in a say higher income bracket area like St Stephens Road in Parnell then the medical society would be moving both heaven and earth to ensure no further outbreaks could happen.
And so, here we have it again, the lower income one is the less consideration, care and importance that person receives from the relevant DHBs of the area concerned.
But we also have the ‘Merry Go-Around’ of someone in a senior role passing the buck and blaming someone else whilst not taking responsibility let alone accountability for what is happening. At the end of the day(as the saying goes)total accountability and responsibility for the actions of the various DHBs, Hospitals etc rests upon the shoulders of the Minister of Health. No amount of passing the buck plays with NZ voters nowadays.
At the end of WW1 there was a flu that killed off millions world-wide. The Spanish flu even got to NZ and there is a mass grave for the over 1275 victims of the Spanish flu at the second biggest cemetery in the Southern Hemisphere.
There is also a plot set aside for next victims of a possible pademic outbreak of something that could well kill of thousands especially those of low income, poor and of poor health.
We have an age-ing population But when such ego-driven pms like John Key referred to the ageing population as ‘dying off and therefore less votes for Winston’ it gives me the impression that even if or when there is a pandemic in NZ to the extent where massive people are killed off that a government like the current one would be more interested in who votes for them rather than the population and how the population of NZ are having to live.