Vulnerable left waiting for vaccines

Questions for Northland DHB.

Why is the vaccine centre only operating four days a week?

Why aren’t doctors’ clinics and pharmacies administering the Covid vaccination yet?

Why is chief executive Dr Nick Chamberlain more concerned about his reputation than he is about the over 65-year-olds and those vunerable with health conditions?

I understand and agree that vunerable Ma¯ ori and Pacifika people should be in this round of vaccines, but dropping the age down to a free for all over 50 years is defeating the purpose, and dropping vunerable people further down the queue.

Why are fit healthy 50 to 65-year-olds being vaccinated before those recommended by the the Ministry of Health’s own website?

I see Northland DHB are in the process of setting up a call centre to cope with the influx of requests. Didn’t these highly paid people realise the consequences of this decision before they put their brainwave into action?

My husband has cancer, but we can’t even get a reply to an email request sent a week ago, or get through to the 0800 number . . . Meanwhile, healthy 50-year-olds are getting their Covid shots two months early.

Robyn Taylor Whanga¯rei

Social Credit put hand up

National deputy leader and local list MP Shane Reti wrote in an opinion piece that he promised in campaign 2020 to continue to fight for retaining our district health board and the staff and the local voice, and challenged other candidates who made similar promises to stand by them and prevent the dissolution of our DHB.

I echo Shane’s comments, and put my hand up as one who has been doing just that.

On October 2, as leader of the Social Credit Party, I put out a press release saying the Government should wipe all DHB debt — something it had just done for the Canterbury District Health Board.

On October 12 I put out a press release calling on the Government to provide much greater funding for hospitals to deal with obesity and to enable them to dramatically increase training and resources for more psychological counsellors.

On November 25 I put a press release out pointing out that the Treasury and Reserve Bank had provided a report to the Minister of Finance in April 2020 suggesting the Government could adopt Social Credit finance mechanisms as a source of funding, rather than borrowing money on the commercial markets.

Doing that could save around $4 billion annually in interest payments — money that could be spent on health services and free dental care for example.

On December 22 I put out a press release suggesting the $572,000 that was spent on a playground in the grounds of Parliament and $330,000 spent on a court case involving Parliament’s speaker could have been better spend funding the cancer drugs necessary to keep many more cancer patients alive.

And on April 21 this year, the day before the Government’s announcement of dramatic changes to the administrative structure of our health system, I put out a press release saying that cutting district health boards from 20 would not reduce waiting lists for hip and knee surgery, colonoscopy, cancer treatment, or a host of other serious health issues and that DHBs should be provided with the funding they needed to deliver high quality health services for the people of their area, sourced from some of the $100 billion the Reserve Bank is currently creating.

You wouldn’t know any of that because the Advocate choose not to print any of my press releases, considering Social Credit to be irrelevant in the political landscape in New Zealand, or our ideas at odds with its owner’s philosophy.

But there you have it Shane, I and Social Credit put our hand up. We’ve been doing our bit.

Like you, we hope others do the same.

Chris Leitch Leader, Social Credit, Whanga¯ rei