It was hardly a dream debut for Labour’s long-awaited, much-argued-over tax package for Aotearoa New Zealand.

What was meant to be a carefully choreographed reveal of a capital gains tax (CGT) later this week instead arrived early — leaked to RNZ over the long weekend and hastily confirmed by Chris Hipkins this morning.

In his media conference at Parliament, Labour’s leader downplayed the premature release, saying the details had been circulated widely and could have come from anywhere.

He delivered a stern warning to any leaker, but also said he was not interested in pursuing any sort of investigation.

That is sensible. History shows such hunts usually end badly. Just ask National about Jami-Lee Ross.

Still, the leak will be of some concern to Hipkins.

The party’s internal debate over whether to pursue a wealth tax or CGT has been long and bruising, with strong feelings on both sides.

RNZ understands the caucus vote for a CGT plan was near unanimous – but not quite. And the party’s ruling council and policy council were more divided again.

Hipkins needs those proponents of a wealth tax to now fall in behind the selected proposal.

Unity will be crucial if Labour is to sell yet another version of a policy it has repeatedly failed to convince voters to support.

Containing the risk
Labour knows the political peril of talking tax. It’s been burned before — in 2011, 2014, and 2017.

This time, the party has chosen the smallest possible target: a cautious CGT applying only to property sales, excluding the family home and farms.

The rate would be set at 28 percent, in line with company tax, and would apply to profits made after 1 July 2027.

National disputes the description of “narrow” but compared to the other options on offer, it meets the definition. This does not cover shares, KiwiSaver, inheritances, or personal assets, like classic cars or artwork.

In many respects, it’s little more than an expanded bright-line test — closely resembling the minority view of the 2019 Tax Working Group.

The strategy is clear: keep it simple and sellable.

Labour believes a modest CGT will be more palatable to the public than the more novel and ambitious wealth tax. Capital gains taxes are familiar overseas and no longer as frightening a concept as they once were.

Definition complications
But even the narrowest design can have complications. For example, look to the definition of “family home”.

Labour is using the definition used currently by the brightline test which requires a person to be currently living in that house “most of the time”.

It means that a person who owns just one house, but lives in a rental property elsewhere, would still be taxed if they sold that property.

Keeping the scope tight also limits revenue.

Labour’s own policy paper concedes the returns will be “small relative to GDP and total tax revenue” – roughly $700 million a year.

And almost all of that will go straight into Labour’s accompanying health policy.

The sweetener: A ‘Medicard’ for GP visits
In a bid to soften any political blow, Labour has paired the tax with a tangible benefit — a “Medicard” giving every New Zealander three free GP visits a year.

By tying its CGT to the health system, Labour hopes to frame it not so much as punishment for property owners, but more as a pragmatic way to fund something people actually want.

It’s no mistake that the policy touches the two issues named most important by voters in polling: the cost-of-living and healthcare.

Labour has also intentionally made the entitlement universal to ensure the widest possible appeal — even if critics argue the money would be better targeted to those most in need.

Speaking of the critics, government MPs were practically salivating today, having eagerly awaited this announcement as a potential turning point in the polls.

Labour’s rise in popularity has come despite having little in the way of a policy platform and the coalition hopes the tide will turn as voters look more sceptically at the alternative.

Finance Minister Nicola Willis branded the proposal a “terrible idea”, warning it would hit small businesses that own property.

‘Tall-poppy politics’
Act’s David Seymour called it divisive “tall-poppy politics”, while New Zealand First declared the rollout “a trainwreck”.

NZ First’s post on social media included a noteworthy kicker, describing the CGT as merely “a foot in the door” for the Greens and Te Pāti Māori.

Hipkins today tried to shut down that attack, claiming that Labour’s tax plan would be the next government’s tax plan.

But he received no assistance from his purported partners, with the Greens insisting they would not be relinquishing their advocacy for a wealth tax.

Expect more heat on that front as the election approaches.

RNZ’s latest Reid Research poll shows the task ahead for Labour: 43 percent in support of a CGT, 36 percent opposed, and 22 percent undecided.

That’s not exactly a decisive mandate – but it’s not dismal either.

After months of indecision, Labour is finally in the policy game.

This may not be how it had hoped to roll out its flagship policy, but the real test will be how well it can sell it over the coming months.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has warned Aotearoa New Zealand to urgently close the “alarming” gaps in measles immunisation, particularly among Māori and Pacific communities.

A WHO review last year found measles vaccination rates were at their lowest since 2012, and said the country was at risk of another large outbreak if those gaps were not filled.

Aotearoa eliminated measles in 2017, but saw a major outbreak in 2019 that infected more than 2000 people and hospitalised 700, many of them young children.

There are now 10 confirmed cases across Manawatū, Nelson, Northland, Taranaki, Wellington and Auckland, raising fears of wider community spread.

Only 72 percent of Māori under five years old are vaccinated, compared with 82 percent across the general population. To stop outbreaks, at least 95 percent coverage is needed.

Public Health Director Dr Corina Grey said the Ministry of Health shared WHO’s concerns.

“We know Māori and Pacific children are still missing out — that’s something we have to fix,” she said.

Serious risk
Pacific health researcher Chris Puliuvea said there is serious risk, specifically for Pacific communities.

“There is a 95 percent level where we need to be [with immunisation]. I believe we may even be behind the general population. For example, in the Bay of Plenty, vaccination rates are well behind other ethnic groups in that region,” Dr Puliueva said.

Dr Puli’uvea warned that measles can be easily spread.

“There is a serious concern at the moment. One infected person could affect up to 18 other people. The virus lingers in the air for several hours, which encourages spread. It’s far more infectious than COVID-19, and that’s a concern for our Māori and Pacific communities,” Puli’uvea said.

“I think what makes it also difficult is that you can be infected with the virus at very early stages and not show symptoms until four days later, so you could be infectious and you could be spreading it.

“Obviously it will take time to report that incident. So I think there is a serious concern at the moment, and the reason why I have this concern is why the vaccination rates are not where [they’re] meant to be,” he added.

Dr Puli’uvea said the lower vaccination rates among Māori and Pacific communities was a complex issue, although there are several reasons.

Key covid lessons
“It’s a difficult question . . .  key lessons from covid-19 showed us the importance of engaging with communities, particularly the faith community, and addressing misinformation and disinformation.

“That’s one of the inequalities.

“Other inequities are just excess people not being able to find time to go and get vaccinated over because they’re at work, or just lots of other things, finding the time to go and get vaccinated is one of them.

“The other thing that I’ve found is some people are not sure if they are immunised, particularly for those born in the 1990s onward,” he said.

Dr Puli’uvea encouraged families to vaccinate even if they were unsure about their vaccination status.

“With MMR, I simply encourage people to go and get vaccinated. There’s no harm in getting the full course again. It protects not only the individual but also prevents spreading the virus,” Dr Puli’uvea said.

The Ministry of Health has expanded vaccination access through pharmacies, GPs, and health centres, and offered incentives for on-time childhood immunisations.

“Every child vaccinated helps protect the whole community,” Dr Grey said.

They also explained that people can check records and get free MMR vaccinations from their GP, pharmacy, or local clinic.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Fiji’s Minister for Health and Medical Services has revealed the latest HIV numbers in the country to a development partner roundtable discussing the national response.

The minister reported 490 new HIV cases between October and December last year, bringing the 2024 total to 1583.

“Included in this number are 32 newborns diagnosed with HIV acquired through mother-to-child transmission,” Dr Atonio Rabici Lalabalavu said.

Fiji declared an outbreak of the disease in January. The Fiji Sun reported around 115 HIV-related deaths in the January-September 2024 period.

Fiji’s Central Division reported 1100 new cases in 2024, with 427 in the Western Division and 50 in the Northern Division.

Of the newly recorded cases, less than half — 770 — have been successfully linked to care, of which 711 have been commenced on antiretroviral therapy (ART).

Just over half were aged in their twenties, and 70 percent of cases were male.

Increase in TB, HIV co-infection
Dr Lalabalavu said the increase in HIV cases was also seeing an increase in tuberculosis and HIV co-infection, with 160 individuals in a year.

He said the ministry strongly encouraged individuals to get tested, know their status, and if it was positive, seek treatment.

And if it is negative, to maintain that negative status.

“I will reiterate what I have said before to all Fijians – HIV should not be a death sentence in Fiji,” he said.

In the Western Pacific, the estimated number of people living with HIV (PLHIV) reached 1.9 million in 2020, up from 1.4 million in 2010.

At the time, the World Health Organisation said that over the previous two decades, HIV prevalence in the Western Pacific had remained low at 0.1 percent.

However, the low prevalence in the general population masked high levels of HIV infection among key populations.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

In February 2025, Dr Diana Sarfati resigned, not unexpectedly, as Director-General of Health after only two years into her five-year term.

As a medical specialist, and in her role as developing the successful cancer control agency, she had extensive experience in New Zealand’s health system.

However, she did not conform to the privately expressed view of Prime Minister Christopher Luxon: That the problem with the health system is that it is led by health.

Responsibility for the appointment of public service chief executives rests with the Public Service Commissioner.

In carrying out this function, Brian Roche had two choices for the process of selecting Sarfati’s replacement — run a contestable hiring process (the usual method) or appoint someone without this process.

With the required approval of Attorney-General Judith Collins and Health Minister Simeon Brown, Roche opted for the exception rather than the rule.

This suggests a degree of pre-determination to appoint someone without the “hindrance” of health system experience, consistent with Luxon’s view.

An appointment from outside health
Consequently, on April 1, Audrey Sonerson was appointed the new Director-General of Health for a five-year term.

She had been the Ministry of Transport chief executive (including when Brown was transport minister). She also had senior positions in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade and in the Police and Treasury.

Though she had been part of the Treasury’s health team and has a master’s in health economics, her only health system experience was in the brief hiatus between Sarfati’s resignation when acting director-general and becoming the confirmed replacement.

‘For a minister with no experience of the complexity of health care delivery to choose a director-general who herself has no health experience is extremely concerning.’

— Dr David Galler, former intensive care specialist

This is unprecedented for the director-general position. Sonerson is the 18th person to hold this position. The first 10 had been medical doctors. In 1992, the first non-doctor holder was appointed (a Canadian with some health management experience).

The subsequent six appointees all had extensive health system experience. Three were medical doctors (two in population health), two had been district health board chief executives, and one had been the director-general in Scotland and a medical geographer.

Dr David Galler is well-placed to comment on the significance of this extraordinary change of direction. He is a retired intensive care specialist and former President of the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists.

He held the unique position of principal medical adviser to the health minister, the ‘eyes and ears’ of the health system for three health ministers in the mid to late 2000s. He also worked closely with two director-generals.

Drawing on this experience, Galler observes that: “Director-generals of health must be respected, influential, knowledgeable, connected and trusted, to ensure that good policy goes into practice and good practice informs policy . . .  For a minister with no experience of the complexity of health care delivery to choose a director-general who herself has no health experience is extremely concerning.”

Breadth of the health system
As the director-general heads up the Health Ministry, she is responsible for being the “steward” of our health system. In this context she is the lead adviser to the government on health. In the context of seeking to improve and protect the health and wellbeing of New Zealanders, the organisation Sonerson now leads is responsible for:

• the stewardship and leadership of the health system; and
• advising her minister and government on health and disability matters.

These responsibilities have to be considered in the context of how extensive the health system is beginning with its complexity, highly specialised range of health professional occupational groups, and its breadth.

This breadth ranges from community healthcare (predominantly general practices), local 24/7 acute hospitals, tertiary hospitals (lower volume, high complexity) and quaternary care services (national services for very uncommon or highly complex even lower volume procedures and treatments, including experimental medicine, uncommon surgical procedures, and advanced trauma care).

Another way of looking at this breadth is that it ranges in treatment from medical to surgical to mental health to diagnostic. And then there is population health such as epidemiology.

Population health and the Health Act
However, responsibility extends further to specific obligations under the Health Act 1956, many of which are operational. Although it is nearly 60 years old, this act has been updated by legislative amendments many times and as recently as 2022 with the passing of the Pae Ora Act that disestablished district health boards and established Health New Zealand.

The Health Act gives Sonerson’s health ministry the function of improving, promoting and protecting public health (as distinct from personal diagnostic and treatment health). Public health is legislatively defined as meaning either the health of all New Zealanders or a population group, community, or section of people within New Zealand.

A critical part of this role is the responsibility for ensuring that local government authorities improve, promote, and protect public health within their districts in appointing key positions (such as medical officers of health, environmental health officers and health protection officers); food and water safety; regular inspections for any nuisances, or any conditions likely to be injurious to health or offensive and, where necessary, secure their abatement or removal; make bylaws for the protection of public health; and provide reports on diseases and sanitary conditions within each district.

The population function under the Health Act of improving, promoting, and protecting public health means that how well the health ministry under Sonerson’s leadership performs directly affects the health and wellbeing of all New Zealanders.

This is an immense responsibility that cannot be minimised.

Understanding universal health systems
Universal health systems such as ours are characterised by being highly complex, adaptive and labour intensive and innovative (innovation primarily comes from its workforce). They provide a public good (rather than commodities) and their breadth is considerable.

But, despite appearances to the contrary, the different parts of this breadth don’t function separately from each other. They are not just interconnected; they are interdependent.

As a result, each part makes up a highly integrated system. Consequently, relationships are critical. The more relational the culture, the better the system will perform; the more contractual the culture, the poorer it will perform.

Galler’s experience-based above-mentioned observation needs to be seen in the context of the challenging nature of universal health systems.

In a wider discussion on health system leadership, Auckland surgeon Dr Erica Whineray Kelly got to the core of the issue very well: “You’d never have a conductor of an orchestra who’d never played an instrument.”

Audrey Sonerson comes into the director-general position with a deficit. It will help her performance if she first recognises that there are many unknowns for her and then proceeds to listen to those within the system who possess the experience of knowing well these unknowns.

It might go some way to alleviating the legitimate concerns of Galler and Whineray Kelly and many others.

Ian Powell is a progressive health, labour market and political “no-frills” forensic commentator in New Zealand. A former senior doctors union leader for more than 30 years, he blogs at Second Opinion and Political Bytes. This article was first published by Newsroom and is republished with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Striking senior New Zealand doctors have hit back at the Health Minister’s attack on their union for “forcing” patients to wait longer for surgery and appointments, due to their 24-hour industrial action.

Respiratory and sleep physician Dr Andrew Davies, who was on the picketline outside Wellington Regional Hospital, said for him and his colleagues, it was “not about the money” — it was about the inability to recruit.

“We’ve got vacant jobs that we’re not allowed to advertise,” he said. “It’s lies that they’re not getting rid of frontline staff.

“The job is technically there on paper, but if you’re not going to advertise for the job, you’re not going to fill it.

“In our department, we’ve waited months and months and months to fill some jobs, and you don’t just get a doctor next week. It takes six months for them to come.”

Dr Davies said no-one wanted to strike and have their patients miss out on care, but thousands of patients were already missing out on care every day, due to staff shortages.

“Every week, we’ve got empty clinics,” he said. “There is space in the clinics that’s not being used, because there’s not a doctor in the chair there.

“While, today, that’s 20 percent of the work of the week gone, because we’re on strike, in some departments, it’s 20 percent every week.

“Every day of the week, there’s a 20 percent deficit in the number of patients people are seeing.”

5500 doctors on strike
Nationwide, about 5500 members of the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists are on strike until 11:59pm today, causing the cancellation of about 4300 planned procedures and specialist appointments.

In a social media post, Health Minister Simeon Brown blamed the union for the disruption, saying an updated offer last week — including a $25,000 bonus for those moving to “hard-to-staff regions” — was rejected by the union, before members even saw it.

Union executive director Sarah Dalton said she would be very happy to facilitate a meeting between doctors and the minister — or he could accept the invitation to attend its national conference.

“They would love to feel like someone up there was listening,” she said. “They don’t at the moment.

“We need to move away from rhetoric, and actually have some time and space for meaningful discussion.

“That’s one of the reasons we’re on strike today. After eight months of negotiating, there was nothing on the table from the employer.

“It was only after we called for strike action that anything changed, so let’s do better.”

Critical workforce shortages were undermining patient care and the current pay offer, which amounted to an increase of less than one percent a year for most doctors, would do nothing to fix that, Dalton said.

“How do you tackle vacancies? You put more time and effort in good terms and conditions for your permanent workforce, and you stop spending spending $380 million a year on locums and temps.

“We shouldn’t have that heavy reliance on those people, so we’ve got to change it.”

NZ training doctors for Australia
After many years of study subsidised by the New Zealand taxpayer, Maeve Hume-Nixon recently qualified as a public health specialist, but may yet end up going overseas.

“I actually thought last year that I would have to go to Australia, where I would be paid another $100,000 minimum, because there were no jobs for me here, basically.

“In the end, I managed to get an emergency extension to my contract and this has continued, but I don’t have security and it’s a pretty frustrating position to be in.”

Neurologist Dr Maas Mollenhauer said he was not able to access the tests he needed to provide care for his patients.

“I’ve seen patients that I have sent for urgent imaging, but they didn’t receive it, and then I got an email from one of my colleagues who was on call, telling me that patient had rocked up to the Emergency Department and, basically, the front half of their skull was full of brain tumour.”

Cancer patients waiting too long
Medical oncologist Dr Sharon Pattison said the health system had reached the point where it was so starved of people and resources, it had become “inefficient”.

“Everyone is waiting for everything, so everything takes longer, and we are waiting until people get seriously ill, before we do anything about it.”

The government’s “faster cancer treatment time” target — 90 percent of patients receiving cancer management within 31 days of the decision to treat — would not give the true picture of what was happening for patients, she said.

“For instance, if I have someone with a potential diagnosis of cancer, there are so many points at which they are waiting — waiting for scan, waiting for a biopsy, waiting for a radiologist to report the scan to show us where to get the biopsy.

“That radiologist may be overseas, so if I want to talk to that specialist I can’t do that. Then the wait for a pathologist to report on the biopsy can now take up to 6-8 weeks.

“We know that, for some people with cancer, if you wait for that long before we can even make your treatment plan, we’re going to make your outcomes worse.

“The whole system is at the point where we are making people more unwell, because we can’t do what we should be doing for them in the framework that we need to.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Thousands of senior hospital doctors and specialists walked off the job today for an unprecedented 24-hour strike in protest over stalled contract negotiations and thousands of other health workers protested across Aotearoa New Zealand against the coalition government’s cutbacks to the public health service Te Whatu Ora.

In spite of the disruptive bad weather across the country, protesters were out in force expressing their concerns over a national health service in crisis.

Among speakers criticising the government’s management of public health at a rally at the entrance to The Domain, near Auckland Hospital, many warned that the cutbacks were a prelude to “creeping privatisation”.

“Health cuts hurt services, the patients who rely on them, and the workers who deliver them,” said health worker Jason Brooke.

“Under this coalition government we’ve seen departments restructured, roles disestablished, change proposals enacted, and hiring freezes implemented.

“Make no mistake. This is austerity. This is managed decline.

“The coalition can talk all they like about spending more on healthcare, the reality for ‘those-of-us-on-the-ground’ is that we know that money is not being spent where it’s needed.”

Placards said “Fight back together for the workers”, “Proud to be union”, “We’re fighting back for workers rights”, and one poster declared: “Don’t bite the hand that wipes your bum — safe staffing now”.

Palestine supporters also carried a May Day message of solidarity from Palestinian Confederation of Trade Unions.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

With the sudden departure of New Zealand’s Reserve Bank Governor, one has to ask whether there is a pattern here — of a succession of public sector leaders leaving their posts in uncertain circumstances and a series of decisions being made without much regard for due process.

It brings to mind the current spectacle of federal government politics playing out in the United States. Four years ago, we observed a concerted attempt by a raucous and determined crowd to storm the Capitol.

Now a smaller, more disciplined and just as determined band is entering federal offices in Washington almost unhindered, to close agencies and programmes and to evict and terminate the employment of thousands of staff.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Sixty four compartments of Papua New Guinea’s main mortuary have been out of service since the festive season while a new refrigerated container has also broken down, leaving the hospital looking for room while another 257 dead bodies lie unclaimed.

Port Moresby General Hospital Chief Executive Officer Dr Paki Molumi confirmed with the Post-Courier that the mortuary is full and that a mass burial is expected in the next three weeks.

The storage issue at the country’s biggest hospital is recurrent despite promises and assistance from the national government, the National Capital District Commission, the NCD Provincial Health Authority, partner agencies and others.

The hospital’s Director of Medical Services Dr Koni Sobi said due to the ageing infrastructure, repairing these compartments was an issue.

“The cooling system of a particular container broke down last week,” he said.

“A contractor was engaged last week but they are unable to get inside and do repair work until we empty that container of all human bodies and body parts.

“The 64 compartments’ chiller in the main mortuary building have also been out of service since the festive season. There is a contractor working to repair it. However, it is a very old unit, needs replacing or a major rehabilitation work, which is undergoing this process at the moment,” Dr Sobi said.

Seven bodies lying in open
When the Post-Courier visited the mortuary on Wednesday, at least seven bodies were left lying outside in the open waiting for relatives to come forward.

Meanwhile, the unpleasant smell from the morgue has affected residents nearby.

Dr Sobi explained that the POMGEN mortuary workers had began shifting the bodies from the container where the cooling system had broken down to five other containers, however the other containers were also full.

“We have bodies in the morgue since September 2023. Currently there are 257 bodies and body parts.

“The smell is evident often when the container is opened to remove body or bodies.

“Preparations for another mass burial have commenced and expected to take place within the next 3 weeks,” he said.

The hospital is now appealing to relatives to come forward and collect bodies of their loved ones for burial.

Claudia Tally is a PNG Post-Courier reporter. Republished with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

One in 50 Fijian children could have rheumatic heart disease and children between the ages of five to 15 years are the most at risk of rheumatic fever.

While revealing these alarming statistics, Health Secretary Dr James Fong revealed the high figures indicated the high screening conducted by the ministry, which was a positive sign in terms of early detection and early mitigation.

Speaking at the World Heart Day celebration in Suva yesterday, he said the ministry was focused on dedicating the best care to those diagnosed with rheumatic heart disease (RHD).

It had been proven that with the best medical care, patients of the disease lived a long life.

Dr Fong highlighted the ministry’s advocacy and early detection awareness in the community remained the focus of the ministry, as it saw an opportunity to reach many Fijians as possible.

Meanwhile, Maca Tikoicina, the grandmother of young Jaydee Tikocina who was diagnosed with RHD last year, shared the painful experience their family had endured in the past 12 months.

She stated Jaydee was diagnosed in September 2022 and had to drop out of school as he became too weak and unable to carry out normal duties.

She highlighted that following through with doctors’ consultations, taking the prescribed medicines on time and following the strict injection schedule of one injection after every 21 days resulted in significant improvement in her grandchild’s life.

“When the doctors screened him in March, they noted some improvements in his heart at the recent check earlier this month, we were told Jaydee can play sports again,” she said.

According to Tikocina, sports and other physical activities were some of the many activities and joys that Jaydee was barred from when he was initially diagnosed.

Tikocina urged parents and guidance to get their children checked early and if they are diagnosed, the key was following medical advice.

She also encouraged Fijians to take advantage of the free screening programmes and outreaches organised by the Ministry of Health.

Pauliasi Mateboto is a Fiji Times reporter. Republished with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

As the Papua New Guinea government continues its globe trotting, the Nonga Base hospital in Rabaul, East New Britain province, is facing a crisis with no morgue cooling chamber for the last five years.

The dead are piled on top of each other and are put into chest freezers that cannot hold more than four bodies at any given time.

The hospital’s morgue is currently the only mortuary in the province that caters for more than 400,000 people.

Hospital manager Dr Osiat Baining confirmed the hospital’s dilemma, saying that the faulty cooling chamber forced the hospital into purchasing nine chest freezers to cater for the dead.

Dead bodies are put in body bags and piled on top of each other and stored in large chest freezers inside the morgue.

The PNG Post-Courier was informed that Health Secretary Dr Osborne Liko is in the process of getting appropriate information on the issue and a detailed response will be made later.

The newspaper understands that given the autonomy of the Provincial Health Authority (PHA), the chief executives of the hospital and the PHA are the appropriate people to speak to.

Faulty cooling chamber
Dr Baining confirmed with the Post-Courier yesterday that the hospital morgue’s cooling chamber had been faulty and was in need of new parts that could only be purchased overseas.

“It’s been faulty for more than five years already, so we have been using chest freezers,” he said.

“We have about eight to nine chest freezers. For capacity, one chest freezer can hold up to four dead bodies.

“We have been trying to get a new [cooling] chamber because we don’t have parts available in the country for the one we have. Its an old one too and needs to be replaced,” he said.

Dr Baining added that a cooling chamber of 12 cabinets could cost almost 1 million kina  (NZ$465,000) and plans are underway by the hospital to get new cooling chambers for its morgue.

“We are actually in the process of getting a new one but at the moment we need funding, as well a supplier for it.

Depends on state budget
“It really depends on the government, on what budget they give us.

“If they give us enough for what we ask for, otherwise we cannot really get most of the things we need.”

Meanwhile, the diener, or “morgue man” at Rabaul Provincial Hospital’s morgue, Kero Kalang, said the biggest challenge of his job was getting dead bodies every day at his doorstep.

He said he was constantly concerned about space and appealed to responsible authorities like the Provincial Health Authority if another mortuary, like Port Moresby and Lae’s Funeral Home, could be set up in the province.

Dianne Wilson is a PNG Post-Courier journalist. Republished with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

As of August 15, the mandates ended for the seven-day isolation period and masks in health settings, with the Health Minister Dr Ayesha Verrall saying wastewater testing showed little trace of the virus.

Dr Verrall acknowledged many would still feel vulnerable.

“So it is on all of us to think well if we’re visiting an aged residential care home for example, that we do follow the recommended procedures there.

“Te Whatu Ora will continue to encourage people to wear masks when they go to hospital — they won’t be mandated.”

Covid cases accounted for just over 2 percent of hospital admissions, Dr Verrall said.

Last step on wind down
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins told RNZ Morning Report this was the last step in winding down covid-19 restrictions.

“We waited until after the winter peak period. The health system overall, while it’s been under pressure and it’s still under pressure, had a much better winter this winter than last winter.”

He said it was on the advice of the director-general of health and there was never a perfect time to make changes to health settings.

General Practice New Zealand chair Dr Bryan Betty said practices like mask wearing and self-isolation should be encouraged for all viruses, not just Covid.

He told Morning Report people needed to continue with the lessons that were learnt from covid but which were applicable to all viruses that were spread from person-to-person such as influenza and RSV.

“Voluntarily staying at home if you do have a flu or a cold so you don’t spread it, and I think masking in public areas of health facilities voluntarily is something we should still keep in play.”

Health providers should consider ensuring masks were worn in places where sick people gathered such as hospitals or GPs’ waiting areas, Dr Betty said.

Vaccination still important
Vaccination would still play an important part in reducing infection and re-infection, he said.

“We do that every year for influenza, we are potentially going forward going to be recommending that for covid, especially for vulnerable populations.”

Employers should be considering how to support workers so they do not come into work sick, he said.

Employers should give people with colds, the flu or Covid the opportunity to work from home if they can to avoid spreading the illness around the workplace, he said.

University of Otago epidemiologist Professor Michael Baker also urged people to stay home when they were sick with covid-19, even though all of the health restrictions had been lifted.

Professor Baker told Morning Report that covid had transitioned from a pandemic threat to an endemic infectious disease.

“Unfortunately that means it’s there the whole time, it is still in New Zealand among the infectious diseases, the leading cause of death and hospitalisation and we know that those infections and reinfections are going to add to that burden of long covid.”

Still vital to isolate
People must remember that it was still vital to isolate when they were sick and not go to work or school or socialise which spread the virus, he said.

People should also continue to wear masks in medical facilities and in poorly ventilated indoor spaces, he said.

New Zealand had come through its fourth wave of infection for the Omicron variant, he said.

“We are going to see new subvariants or lineage of the virus arrive, they will be better at escaping from our immunity, our immunity will wane of course unless you get boosted.”

The government needed to look at how to reinforce those behaviours that prevented covid from spreading now that the mandates had been removed, he said.

“I mean this could be running media campaigns or developing codes of practice say with employers, Business New Zealand, I mean this is a chance for them really to show leadership about how they’re going to support the workforce in New Zealand, self-isolating when they are sick.”

Hospitilisations and mortality rates showed that covid-19 continued to have an impact and watching those rates would indicate whether the mandates had been removed too early, he said.

Integrated approach needed
New Zealand needed to develop a coherent, integrated approach to dealing with all respiratory infections which were the infectious diseases that had the biggest impact, he said.

“They have a big drain on our health resources and so we do need to look at better surveillance for these infections that will tell us what’s happening and also really it’s just having a culture of limiting transmission of these infections.”

That meant staying home when sick and using masks in indoor environments with poor ventilation, he said.

Auckland Council disability strategic advisory group chair Dr Huhana Hickey said getting rid of masks at health care centres was extremely dangerous for immunocompromised people.

“The problem for immune-compromised people is we’re frequent flyers, but we’re being asked to go into a situation that puts us all at risk of not just dealing with what’s making us sick but risking getting covid, which could kill us.”

Hickey said scrapping the seven-day compulsory isolation period could result in more workers returning while still infectious, which she believed would mean immunocompromised people were likely to stay home.

“If they cannot stay home and employers require them to work, they’re going to spread covid as well, so that means I don’t go to restaurants now because I don’t know if the waiter’s sick, I don’t know if the chef’s sick.”

Minimal impact of numbers
University of Auckland mathematics professor and covid-19 modeller Michael Plank expected the lack of mask and isolation requirements to have a minimal impact on case numbers.

He said the main drivers of infection were people who were asymptomatic cases or had not tested yet.

“I’m not sure than an isolation mandate is going to have a particularly large effect on infection rates in the long term.

“If we look at other countries that removed isolation mandates, like Australia, there’s really no evidence of a surge in numbers.”

Restaurant owners embraced the government’s decision.

The Restaurant Association surveyed more than 200 of its members, and 84 percent said they supported the idea.

But many planned to introduce their own requirements, chief executive Marisa Bidois said.

“Thirty nine percent of the respondents said they intended to mandate a five day isolation period for their employees,” she said.

“So that’s something they’re going to implement themselves as an internal policy.”

Many hospitality workers would also be expected to test themselves proactively.

“We also had 42 percent of respondents planning to require employees with any symptoms to undergo testing before returning to work.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation (YLBHI) chair Muhammad Isnur has condemned the drafting of the Healthcare Bill (RUU Kesehatan) as “fake”, saying that the draft is almost the same as the Omnibus Law on Job Creation (Cipta Kerja).

According to Isnur, the similarity can be seen from a test of the academic context, which like the Jobs Law is unable to be seen.

“Should we say it’s a fake — yeah, the academic manuscript is fake,” he said.

Isnur said that the initial study or academic manuscript used in the drafting the draft Health Law was written carelessly and it had no legitimacy.

It could not be called an academic manuscript as the basis for drafting a law.

“For example, in the research methodology it quotes several specialists or experts whose books are outdated, their books have even been revised by the authors themselves,” said Isnur.

Isnur noted that the Health Bill would result in the reevaluation of policies in other laws, yet the references in the academic manuscript were unclear, including who did the research for it.

Lack of accountability
“We also do not know at all who drafted this. How can this be accountable as an academic manuscript if we don’t know who wrote it,” he said.

The YLBHI along with 42 other civil society groups are asking that the ratification of the Health Bill be postponed.

Aside from the fact that the academic manuscript was similar to Jobs Law, several concerns were raised by the Civil Society Coalition such as the deliberations on the law which were closed and without meaningful public participation.

Another reason was the weakness of the argument that the Health Bill was urgent and therefore needed to use the omnibus law method.

The law was also seen as tending to lead towards the liberalisation of the health system, expanding the privatisation of health services and would eliminate the minimum allocation for the health budget.

The centralisation of healthcare management by the central government is also regarded as reducing independent learning and development in the health sector.

Translated by James Balowski for Indoleft News. The original title of the article was “YLBHI: RUU Kesehatan Bodong Naskah Akademiknya, seperti UU Cipta Kerja”.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Tokelau’s largest atoll, Nukunonu, is now out of lockdown after experiencing its first community cases of covid-19.

In a statement, the government said Fakaofo Atoll has had two cases at the border and Nukunonu now has six positive community cases — all within the same household.

This includes the two new community cases who are children from the same family who have been isolating together.

The two kids were confirmed as covid-19 positive on Friday, May 26.

Tokelau confirmed its first community case on May 21, becoming one of the last places in the world to record community transmission.

Government spokesperson Aukusitino Vitale said they were all in good health and were being taken care of.

Hospital staff continued to manage their situation daily.

Meanwhile, the Council for the Ongoing Government, chaired by the Ulu o Tokelau (head of government), is set to meet on Friday to discuss the next official covid-19 update.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Te Whatu Ora’s new winter health plan fails to address workforce shortages and staff burnout in Aotearoa New Zealand, frontline healthcare workers say.

The organisation launched its 24-point plan on Wednesday, saying it would help hospitals and GPs cope with an expected surge in patient demand over the coming months.

Under the plan, people with minor ailments will be able to be assessed by a pharmacist and given free or subsidised medication in line with if they had visited their GP.

Family doctors will also be able to refer patients for X-rays and ultrasounds in a bid to reduce hospital admissions.

Regional and national escalation plans will be in place to help improve hospital capacity by “diverting resources and patients within and across regions to support under-pressure facilities”.

But a doctor from Middlemore Hospital’s emergency department, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said while diverting patients and resources sounded “good in theory”, there needed to be the staff available to deliver that plan.

There was so much burnout among doctors and nurses, she said.

“You can’t flog a dead horse.

Staff ‘not available’
“In practice these escalation plans involve going through a checklist of different resources that can be provided to help, but you then find out they aren’t available — due to staffing issues.”

A nurse from the hospital’s ED agreed chronic workforce shortages would prevent many of the proposals ever working.

“It all sounds all great, but where is Te Whatu Ora finding all the staff to do these things and how are they going to do it in a healthcare system that is already understaffed and in crisis?”

Giving pharmacists a greater role to play could also be problematic as they were also busy and were not trained to diagnose patient ailments, the nurse said.

In February, Te Whatu Ora identified Middlemore Hospital as one of eight national ‘hotspots’ needing extra support before the winter flu season.

Former chairperson Rob Campbell admitted the workforce shortages plaguing Middlemore’s ED would not be addressed in time for the flu season.

It followed comments from frontline healthcare workers who said the hospital’s ED was haemorrhaging staff and they were concerned about its ability to function during winter.

‘Doing what we can’
In a statement, Te Whatu Ora (Counties Manukau) interim lead of hospital and specialist services Dr Vanessa Thornton said while there had been growth in staffing numbers nationally, it needed to continue to grow its workforce.

“We know that pressure from shortages across our workforce is being felt on the frontlines of our health system. We can’t fix those shortages quickly – but are doing what we can to alleviate pressure and get more staff into our hospitals and other services.”

She said that includes making it easier for internationally qualified staff to work here and assisting qualified nurses to return to practice.

Local Democracy Reporting is Public Interest Journalism funded through NZ On Air. It is published by Asia Pacific Report in collaboration.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The World Health Organisation’s decision to remove covid-19 as a global health emergency is the right move, epidemiologist Professor Michael Baker says.

The organisation said the virus was now an established and ongoing health issue that no longer constituted a public health emergency of international concern.

Professor Baker said the global status change made sense at this stage, but it did not impact on whether covid-19 was still a pandemic.

Covid-19 was still New Zealand’s number one killer when it came to infectious disease and people should make sure they were vaccinated and take sensible precautions, he said.

“There might be some scaling down in the international reporting of cases, but really it doesn’t make a difference to somewhere like New Zealand.

“It makes no practical difference whatsoever to how countries manage this infection.”

1000 NZ deaths predicted this year
Professor Baker earlier said that this year covid-19 was on track to kill some 1000 people in New Zealand and hospitalise around 10,000.

The threat of long covid also loomed — with one recent study suggesting as many as one in five New Zealanders reported lingering symptoms after their first infection.

He emphasised the need for caution in easing our few remaining protections.

The latest vaccine was one of the best things people could do to guard against the disease, because it included protection against omicron — the current dominant variant circulating in the community.

“You have to always think why the World Health Organisation assigned it [a global health emergency originally] and it’s really related to these certain criteria.

“It is about how severe and how unexpected [the disease is], but it’s really about whether an international response is needed and whether there’s potential for international spread.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz