Time for progress on drug law
Welcome signs of new realism on drugs. Sadly, it’s the sort of progress only a right-wing government can propose.
Social issues
health
UK sugar tax
The UK has done the sensible thing for public health and introduced “a new tax on sugary drinks”. The Herald asks: UK sugar tax – could NZ be next?
Health law expert on the TPP
We won’t be able to say that we weren’t warned.
Health Ministry lost the plot and heads should roll
The Health Ministry committed to spending $18m that they didn’t have on upgrading their own offices, and tried to claw the money back from the underfunded DHBs trying to deliver health care to NZ. And that seems to be just fine with Minister Coleman.
NRT: A waiting list by another name
I/S at No Right Turn on hospital waiting lists – and those that don’t even make it on them.
Medical cannabis review
With Martin Crowe’s sad death we now learn that he too was self-medicating with liquid cannabis. The time for political timidity is past – make cannabis legally available for medical purposes.
Medicines New Zealand on Pharmac funding
A media release from Medicines New Zealand: “While New Zealanders wait for 81 medicines, PHARMAC gives money back”…
More blood on its hands as National Ltd™cuts mental health funding in Christchurch
‘ In between slurping simpers during his most recent session of MediaWorks virtual fellatio, John ‘The Liar’ Key managed to express concern for […]
Final hours for submission on voluntary euthanasia
The end of today is the last chance to make a submission to Parliament on voluntary euthanasia.
The great big list of John Key’s big fat lies (UPDATED)
How many more lies will John Key tell today in his so-called State of the Nation address? Virtual chocolate fish to whomever guesses the closest number.
Life and Death and Cannabis
I am taking Cannabis Oil to manage my pain as my lung cancer takes over my body. It’s sort of as simple as that really. For some people talking about dying is confronting but actually talking about it allows us to think about how it happens – it is actually as much a social event as a physical one and knowing someone is comfortable, getting good treatment and pain relief is very much part of the social dimension as the physical one.
Obesity is a structural problem
Structural problems need structural solutions. Progress on this major public health issue has been set back by a decade because we elected a useless National government.
Coleman to regulate high sugar industry
Health Minister Jonathan Coleman said there is a voluntary regime in place for the manufacture and sale of high sugar food but where there is is self regulation it is often ignored.
Because of the danger high sugar foods potentially pose it’s important to have a regulatory body and licensing/education regime to ensure manufacturers and retailers only provide food that has healthy outcomes.
The cost of cancer
When people are turning in these numbers to crowd-funding for treatment something is seriously, seriously wrong.
Let them drink beer
Health Minister Coleman provides another salient example of the surreal lengths that National will go to in order to avoid facing up to truths that they don’t approve of.
Obesity policy ignores elephant in the room
Obesity is a difficult topic to write about, but with the release of new government policy yesterday it is very much in the news. Unfortunately, unsurprisingly, National have chosen to tinker with the consequences of obesity without addressing the causes.
Cancer patients and punitive policies
We need a welfare system that acknowledges the realities of cancer and other major medical conditions. That isn’t “special treatment”, it is basic human decency.
Medicinal cannabis
Helen Kelly calls for the government “to get real about medicinal cannabis”. Seriously – what are we waiting for?
Diesel Bomb
Last Friday I wrote a post on Volkwagen gaming NOx emissions. This is a follow up.
NOx-ious shit all around.
Been trying to get my head around the implications of Volkswagen’s rigged diesel performance tests. Predictably, and unlike most stories covering this, I couldn’t give a rat’s arse for the financial woes the company might be facing.
A schools league table that we need
The Nats have created the (spurious) data for school “league tables” so that parents can be fully informed and make choices, so they tell us. But it seems that parents don’t deserve to be fully informed about the dangerous physical health of schools. That would be just too inconvenient.
Tom Scott on housing
TPP and the Pharmac reality
Key glibly says that the government will meet increased costs for medicine under the TPPP, but the reality for Pharmac is that its budget is already squeezed. If the TPP goes ahead Key’s promise will quickly be “forgotten”.
Let’s Lynch the Landlord
As The Standard said at the time, the Government’s decision to destroy Relationships Aotearoa could be a colossal stuff up. And this morning we learn that a Canterbury landlord has allowed access to the sensitive files left behind when RA closed. Anne Tolley must act or Anne Tolley must go.
Then they came for the Health Boards
It appears that the Government has a radical proposal to undermine democratic participation in our Health Boards. Although the Minister claims not to know about it.
Gutting Southern health care is wrong
“Southern DHB commissioner called in to cut costs gets pay increase – to $1400 a day” – but that’s not the interesting bit…
A win on rental standards
This is a good example of a policy win from opposition. More please!
Christchurch needs blankets
A Christchurch blanket bank has run out of blankets, in this the “seventh year of the brighter future”…
Another disease of poverty making a comeback
Add another disease of poverty to the list of those that are making a comeback in NZ.
Sacrificing mental health to dragons
The Labour Party has had a sneak peek at the process our government is using to pick “providers” for its mercenary social impact bonds scheme, and it’s like something off television.
Southern DHB sacked
Southern DHB sacked – scapegoats for systematic underfunding of the health sector.
Costly government
This is the true irony of National governments. Their entire platform is one of “fiscal responsibility” and “good economic management” yet time and time again they spend money the way I did when I was a teenager: false economies and short-term wish fulfilment.
The Responsibilities of Government
The death of Emma-Lita Bourne is not just a personal tragedy for the family: it is an event that should make New Zealand angry with the powerful people in our society who control the purse strings. They are responsible for condemning thousands of children to life-threatening conditions. And they are doing it in our name!
Heartless government
A few stories of recent weeks which show exactly what kind of government we have.
Nick Smith on housing then and now
In 2013 Nick Smith promised an effective housing WOF. Yesterday he said “People dying in winter of pneumonia and other illnesses is not new.” Has National ever kept a constructive sounding social policy promise?
Another death linked to cold state house
This should not be happening in New Zealand.