Slashing suicide funding and hiding child poverty is a mutilation too far – will Doocey survive OIA fallout?
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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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.
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