Letters: The Insensitive Past Treatment of Single Mothers; ignorant patients asking for doctor’s ethnicity

Equally disturbing are the mouthy apologies from the various institutions that imposed such a cruel punishment, and that would no doubt have labeled single mothers with a scarlet letter had they been allowed to do so.

What a shame they haven’t put an equally censorious eye on the parents of those children. An apology rings hollow when it comes to justifications that point to the narrow conventions of that time and does nothing to mitigate the trauma these women and their children suffered.

Without official recognition and meaningful inclusion in care abuse reporting, particularly the role played by hospitals, an entire generation of women and children will become a sad memory in history. They deserve better.

Mary Hearn, Glendowie.

Ignorant patients

Why are there so many ignorant people in NZ?

Since our health care system is in crisis, it has not stopped patients from demanding the ethnicity of the medical staff they choose to treat them (Herald of the weekendOctober 5).

NZ hospital service is free for all and patients who feel they have a right to choose the ethnicity/gender of the person treating them have to go into private care and pay for the privilege.

Te Whatu Ora-Health NZ is wrong to claim that these extremely hardworking medical professionals should increase the stress of their jobs by requiring them to educate demanding ignorant patients. Their job is patient care of the highest standard, not educating the ignorant.

I can’t imagine how degrading it must be for a young doctor or nurse to be racially attacked by patients.

Marie Kaire, Whangarei.

Directed by the lobby

I did not realize that this Government would be so controlled by pressure groups.

We had a very good tobacco law that would reduce children starting to smoke, the tobacco lobby soon got rid of that and even got tax breaks on one of their deadly products. It must maintain a supply of addicts.

Next we had ferries that had the ability to take heavier containers off the road and onto trains. They were immediately cancelled. The truck lobby soon saw that.

The property owners’ lobby then clawed back the tax cuts for their interests. And this incentive for more electric cars had to go and also the regional fuel tax. Well done the oil lobby.

Now I am intrigued to see how successful the gun lobby is through their representative of the Act.

Vince West, Milford.

History repeats itself

Gumboot Friday smells like roses compared to the irresistibly alluring smell of “lobby” smell surrounding the lack of scrutiny, transparency and expert analysis applied to Minister Casey Costello’s $230 million spending on excise tax cuts on tobacco products.

She assures us that she is very clean, despite the fact that there is no sign of advice, the universal disgust and horror of health experts, and a huge lack of research to justify this expense.

Why is it so easy for ministers to spend $230 million, but $24 million on Gumboot Friday is scrutinized? Christopher Luxon seems to have given Costello carte blanche. Another example of a coalition deal that defies expert opinion and analysis – a classic case of penny wise and pound foolish?

In reality, it potentially indicates that sinister stranglehold lobbyists continue to use our children as pawns in their drug deals that empower coalition decisions.

Judith Collins gave the alcohol industry power to decide on alcopops and her lawyers later determined the future of local alcohol policies (LAPs) that had been frustrated for more than 10 years.

Does history repeat itself without smoking? Lobby money is a must and large tobacco and alcohol have plenty, so attractive for small parties.

Steve Russell, Hillcrest.

Support the vulnerable

I applaud the Government taking measures to reduce the financial deficit, but it cannot and must not cut services where vulnerable groups are affected.

The right has a strong business focus on economic growth, recognizes and seeks savings in wasteful spending, but cuts to groups that help the needy must be exempt. These groups that help the vulnerable, tirelessly and with a small budget, actually avoid the crisis; crisis that ends in the emergency room, in the courts or in prison.

None of these alternatives are helpful to our most vulnerable, nor do they save money in the long run. So my plea to the Government is to support our vulnerable without prejudice and the returns will save money in the long run.

John Ford, Taradale.

Nurse numbers

Journalist Isaac Davison considered “How Health NZ’s budget blew up” and the board claimed that “the main driver of its financial position was overspending on nurses” (NZ HeraldOctober 9). This answer must be deselected.

Every Health Minister (two Labour, one National) I worked with asked me: “Do we have a nursing shortage?”. Difficult to answer given that the health boards counted vacancies differently, with none admitting a shortage.

That was the wrong question, the truth is how many nurses are we willing to hire. International evidence describes the number of qualified nurses needed to ensure good care and, conversely, the adverse consequences of not having enough. The consequent cost is probably greater than the employment of nurses, which may be expelled.

The board’s response was probably correct given the available nursing budgets. The honest answer is that the government has not calculated the nursing figures for safe and effective care, making money for it, or alternatively the maths has been done and, despite proven benefit decisions, they have for not funding a workforce of the size and quality Kiwis deserve.

Honesty time: This is the number of nurses we need; that’s what we can afford/bother to buy. Any cost explosion is due to a lack of funding for the nurses that are actually needed.

Dr. Mark Jones, Albany.

Delay in the investigation

Could someone explain why it took five years to report the findings after the tragic events that claimed Sophia Crestani’s life?

Wouldn’t the lessons learned have been more valuable much earlier, say four years ago? Surely there is a need to speed up the investigative and legal processes, at least with the establishment of tight initial deadlines.

The perfect investigation and legal process would take an infinite amount of time. 80% of the value is likely to be available in the first 20% of the time. Isn’t there some way to speed things up while acknowledging the complexities and sensitivities involved?

The University of Otago may have been “working on these recommendations” much earlier.

David Hopkins, Remuera.

A quick word

Maybe Mayor Wayne Brown needs to look at the excessive cost of traffic management in Auckland. We had a local road turned into a one-way system for three days while Vector worked on a power pole on a grass verge. My observations of the traffic management team (and there were many) with their trucks was that they were on the phone all day as our roads are very quiet and there were no traffic issues . Auckland Transport obviously thinks we can’t follow the signs and use our common sense to give way to the little traffic that was using the road.

Lesley Baillie, Milford.

Isn’t it time Auckland Transport took a cue and got their enforcement staff to do their daily jobs on public transport? Or is the amount of AT brand vehicles I see driving around proof that cars really are the best way to get around Auckland?

Tim Edwards, Hobsonville.

On 9th October I received a letter from NZ Post in my mailbox, dated 8th April 2024. It informed me of changes to the delivery service to our rural post office from 29th June of 2024. The changes were necessary “to maintain commercial viability.” and continue to offer a valuable delivery service”. It took six months for this letter to arrive. And they wonder why people don’t use their service anymore.

Sandra Croft, Leigh.

You might think the Government is opposed to welfare, but think about it. First there was welfare for homeowners, then for the gun lobby, for-profit charter schools, the tobacco industry and now, possibly most deserving of all, real estate developers.

So the next time you wait 12 hours in A&E, as I did recently, don’t bemoan the lack of funding for health, but rejoice that public money, yours and mine, is will use to rescue these poor and oppressed. developers This is a government that knows where its priorities lie.

Keith L Muir, Mount Maunganui.

The reintroduction of Tui billboards is a welcome return of this iconic piece of advertising to the Kiwi landscape. It’s clever, controversial and obviously effective, as everyone seems to know about the slogan. Surely any advertiser and their client would want the kind of response it generates. Yes, absolutely!

Bernard Walker, Mount Maunganui.

If the police want to catch Tom Phillips, I might suggest they offer the job on the reality TV show hunted It seems they can find people on a 7.7 million km2 continent, so the west coast of the North Island should be a doodle.

CC McDowall, Rotorua.

It seems like hardly a day goes by that we don’t hear something about Nicole McKee and/or Casey Costello. Both have limited experience as MPs, but both are in the Cabinet. Both are members of minority parties. Both are pursuing policies for which the evidence is, to say the least, questionable. Both have the support of the prime minister. You don’t have to be naive to question whether the support of Mr. Luxon is based on the fear of damaging or destroying the coalition.

Greg Cave, Sunnyvale.

Will the HMNZS Manawanui sinking tribunal find a link between the management of the Royal New Zealand Navy and Cook Strait ferries?

Alan Johnson, Papatoetoe.