Talking about the death toll from the February killer quake in Christchurch, Professor Mike Ardagh reckons that there will be a number of others who will have died from the quake who are not yet part of this toll. He is thinking mainly of those who succumbed to complications from their injuries or died as [...]
When Mrs. MacDoctor and I tied the knot some 27 years ago, we did not use the traditional vows of ’til death do us part. Not because we view our marriage as anything less than permanent, but because Mrs. MacDoctor did not particularly like dwelling on negatives like sickness and death. I don’t recall the [...]
Some newspaper articles cause me to wonder what is NOT being said. The Herald today runs the headline: Denied help for sexual abuse, dead days later A review of new rules for sexual abuse counseling has come too late to save a South Auckland mother who died four days after her claim for ACC-funded counselling [...]
Not much time for blogging tonight but I could resist a quick comment on the low-hanging fruit offered by ScrubOne in this comment. The Yahoo “news” item reads: I feed my son marijuana While most parents are focussed on warning their children about the dangers of drugs, mum-of-three Mieko Hester-Perez is happily dishing up marijuana [...]
As we approach the New Year and my 1000th blog post (which will be sometime in January), allow me a moment of introspection. A number of fellow bloggers have left the blogosphere or drastically reduced their presence. Some have moved to new homes. Some have disappeared without even a farewell (Monkey, where are you?). Some [...]
An article in yesterday’s Dominion Post posted on Stuff caught my eye. It featured a call to end the practice of “seclusion” – the isolation of a mental health patient in a bare room. What attracted my attention was the utter lack of any sort of attempt at balance or analysis. The article mainly featured [...]
The battle between counsellors treating sexual abuse victims and ACC continues with some counsellors refusing to “label” their clients with a DSM IV mental health diagnosis. The counsellors correctly point out that many of these (mostly) women do not have mental health problems, but do need help. ACC’s obsession with mental health diagnoses extends to [...]
Clayton Weatherston has been found guilty of murdering Sophie Elliot and that verdict troubles me on two counts. The first is the one that everyone has being blogging about, the rather sick attempt to portray Ms. Elliot’s murder as somehow justified by denigrating her character. There is now a strong feeling that the defense of [...]
Nick Smith has reiterated that ACC has become another branch of welfare rather than an insurance company. He is right. Perhaps the most obvious indication of this was the ridiculous inclusion of mental stress and overuse injuries in the workplace compensation scheme. Mental illness has no place as part of an insurance scheme for accidents. [...]
There was an ugly example of inexcusably lazy journalism in the Herald on Sunday, yesterday (not available online). In an article on homicidal mental health patients, in a sidebar on Mark Burton – the man who stabbed his mother to death shortly after discharge from Invercargill Mental Health unit – comes this horror: Dr Tom O’Flynn, [...]
