The Timaru Herald has run an article on the website offtheradar.co.nz, who are calling for the removal of Gardasil from the vaccination regime because it causes 16 times more serious adverse events than it prevents cervical cancer fatalities. Like most of the websites “crusading” against vaccines, it destroys its own credibility by drawing non-scientific conclusions [...]

I see an number of doctors are voicing their concerns of the government interest in a Pharmac-like organisation to take over hospital based purchases. Not without good reason, I might add. The Pharmac model has a major flaw. That flaw is that the model is based on the free availability of cheap “equivalents”.
There is no [...]

Not satisfied with rendering cold and flu medicines ineffective by removing pseudoephedrine from general sale, Medsafe continues it’s onslaught on cold and flu meds by trying to remove all the syrups and infusions from supermarket shelves. Apparently they are concerned about the use of them in under sixes (despite the fact that fatalities are very [...]

I have finally managed to sit down and finish Gareth Morgan’s book, Health Cheque,  on the New Zealand health care system (long international flights are at least good for something). I find most of Morgan’s books a little superficial for my tastes and Health Cheque is certainly no exception, lacking, as it does, any deep [...]

The Dominion Post writes yesterday about the looming shortage of oncologists. Four cancer doctors have resigned in a very short space of time. The article explores all the usual reasons why doctors leave, particularly the worrying ones of overwork,  which can only be fixed by employing more hard-to-get doctors. What struck me, though, was the [...]

There is good and bad in the news that Pharmac is to morph into a single purchasing point for all medicine and health technology.
The Good
Technology purchases will be co-ordinated across the country, meaning that a doctor can move from one hospital to another without having to learn how all the gadgets that have become so [...]

This is the section on health from the 2025 Task Force summary:
10. Health:
a. A funder-provider model should be reintroduced in the hospital sector, allowing much greater private sector involvement in the provision of taxpayer-funded services.
b. Universal (unrelated to income or health status) subsidies for doctors’ visits should be abolished.
c. Subsidies for prescription pharmaceuticals should be substantially reduced, with [...]

I see Labour is bellyaching about the proposed new National Health Board again.
Labour’s health spokeswoman, Ruth Dyson, said Mr Ryall had already make up his mind about the future direction of health services.
“This is more about Mr Ryall trying to impose his own vision for health than about a genuine attempt to make the current [...]

There’s an interesting development in the Labtests story. Adolf Fiinkensein at No Minister posed a series of questions to Tony Ryall yesterday, for which he received a very interesting e-mail today. The sender alleges that three of the HDC complaints are made by a DML Employee’s wife and four were made by a group of [...]

It is hardly news that the ambulance services in this country are in dire straits. This does not stop Stuff running yet another article on “the thin white line” quoting the Marlborough Express about Blenheim’s ambulances. The media seems to constantly harp on the staff shortages, particularly shortages of trained full-time staff. I have yet [...]