When a serious error is made in someone’s diagnosis, investigation or treatment, we really like to blame a health practitioner or two. In the Herald today, just such a diagnostic disaster is blamed on the DHB as Ron Paterson asks them to apologise for poor service. This is pretty unfair of Mr. Paterson as it [...]

I have recently gone back into general practice full-time. One thing that seems very clear to me is that it has become increasingly difficult to refer people into the hospital system unless they are critically ill. My last stint as a GP was in mid-2007, but, at that time, it seemed reasonably easy to refer [...]

In the game of Laboratory Test Chicken that has been going on recently, the Auckland DHBs have just folded their hand (to mix a metaphor) and are now the clear losers. All the “savings” promised by this move are now totally lost. Labtests have been pushed into providing a much more comprehensive service than they [...]

Frogblog has a long post by Kevin Hague entitled Outsourcing Health No Solution arguing that public hospitals should be used to maximum capacity before outsourcing operations to the private sector. Superficially, this sounds like a reasonable argument but, as we look in more depth at Hague’s discussion, it is easy to see that his arguments [...]

Spam Journalism: The spurious use of sensational headlines to add spice to an otherwise pointless article. (MacDoctor definition) And today’s fine example of  spam journalism has a medical flavour (always plenty of that). From the Taranaki Daily News: Hospital services to get the knife Taranaki’s public hospitals are preparing for cutbacks after the Government laid down [...]

The controversy about MidCentral Health gagging it’s doctors continues. Another doctor has confirmed that the DHB has warned them not to speak to the media about it’s ailing oncology service. MidCentral denies this. I believe the doctors. It is my experience that DHBs do not like their bad news paraded about in the media. In [...]

I see National has accused Labour of having a hidden agenda – wanting to force the amalgamations of district health boards. “Behind closed doors,” says National’s health spokesman Tony Ryall, “Labour appears to be working on a plan to forcibly amalgamate some DHBs, and proposals are already at the point that they’re making their way through [...]

Very sad article in the Weekend Herald today about a patient who died when a GP issued a computerized script with an incorrect dosage. She was apparently supposed to have had the drug weekly and it was prescribed daily. The error was not picked up by the GP signing the script, nor by the pharmacist [...]