Recently Medical officers of health were told that they are unable to speak about public health matters without approval from the Minister of Health’s office in Wellington. Minister Simeon Brown said he wanted medical officers of health to stop writing about issues such as fast food and “leading advocacy campaigns” on public health issues. Instead, he said their focus should be on “technical advice” and immunisation campaigns. This is from a government which said that they would work through localism when they stood for election.
I decided to check on Brown’s training and life experiences which provided him with the skills to block comments by highly trained medical professionals. It appears he graduated with degrees in law and commerce in 2016 and worked for a bank for a year then was elected to parliament in 2017 at the age of 26.
This background makes him an ideal Minister of Health with vast life experience in medical matters. Cynicism aside, he is essentially a political animal who has no training with the issues that the professionals are telling him. His task is smothering anything which could cause damage for his political party. That’s not about improving our access to health, it’s about stifling public debate, which is the essence of politics.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb wrote in The Black Swan “An ad hominem attack against an intellectual, not against an idea, is highly flattering. It indicates that the person does not have anything intelligent to say about your message”.
Here’s the article which reported this amazing political interference in health matters Doctors fear Govt instruction means they can’t talk freely about public health issues | Stuff. So, how did the medical profession respond. We should remember that Doctors are rarely hot heads leading left wing thinking.
Well, here’s one article Open Letter to the Politicians Telling *Public Health Doctors* to not talk to the public by Dr Gary Payinda an emergency doctor who wrote:
- The very things Public Health doctors specialise in—the social determinants of health, the deep drivers of sickness that underly disease in our community. Things like contaminated water, unsafe workplaces, smoking, unhealthy food marketed by billion-dollar corporations, and the weasels in the alcohol and tobacco industries that are always and everywhere trying to make money off addicting New Zealanders.
- Things that don’t fit with the government’s goals: to make more profits for corporations like Philip Morris, British American Tobacco, vape shops, and fast food chains at the expense of the New Zealand public’s health.
He concluded:
Public Health Doctors, please know we are eternally grateful. Thank you for looking after us all and doing what you do despite it all.
And realise that you are supported. Surely the doctor’s union, ASMS, will have your back—they will fight any attempts to silence your professional ability to do the job you were hired to do. They job you were trained to do and have dedicated your professional lives to doing.
And know that as long as you speak in your personal capacity, if you choose to do so, they cannot silence you.
You’ve got thousands and thousands of grateful New Zealand citizens on your side.
#PublicHealth #PeopleOverProfits #ASMS
Sir Collin Tukuitonga, a University of Auckland professor and former national director of public health, said it was “unheard of” to see such ministerial and bureaucratic interference in day-to-day public health work.
“It’s a very Trumpian approach, with Government dictating to various agencies what they can and can’t say. It’s absolutely ridiculous. We must push back on this stuff. It is unacceptable in Aotearoa and I hope the public see it for what it is,” Tukuitonga said.
He said he saw it as “censorship”.
“They’re being told they can’t do their jobs, and they have to refer to ministerial officers for approval. I mean, it’s ridiculous. They’re being censored,” he said.
He said medical officers of health, who were doctors specialised in public health, shouldn’t face vetting processes that no other speciality was subjected to.
“It is unheard of. It is like telling a surgeon, ‘You can’t operate on that patient. You have to operate on this instead’. You have to trust people’s professional judgement,” he said.
I will leave the final words on this disgusting exercise to Craig Rennie the CTU economist:
We do know:
- Health funding is not matching inflation and population challenges – never mind demographic challenges
- Funding is about to be stretched even further with a range of new initiatives that have no new funding
- The new initiatives go absolutely nowhere near need.
- At no point since the Budget have we tackled any of the of the real drivers of poor health – child poverty, obesity, poor housing, stress, overworked families.
- The government is happy to resort to insults rather than answer questions on this.
Instead, we have chosen to loosen tobacco regulations – generating more than $1bn in new tobacco taxation. That was used to deliver the tax cuts last year – so it didn’t even go into the health service. Smoking kills 5,000 Kiwis every year. We have chosen to loosen the target for the number of children living in poverty by 17,000. Government targets for faster cancer treatment, immunisation, and wait times for specialist assessment gone backwards in the past year. Do you feel back on track yet?
In his speech on Friday the Minister said “There’s often too much focus on what the unions, the colleges, or professional lobby groups say, and not enough focus on what the patient says”. Minister – if you actually listen carefully all those groups are saying the same thing. You aren’t putting the money in. You are cutting elements like IT projects that can make it work better. You are blaming anyone but yourself for your choices. You have no plan – save for more privatisation of a service that Kiwis don’t want to see privatised.
The great people who staff our health service, and New Zealanders who use the service deserve better. They deserve a Minister who will actually get to grips with the challenge – not one who thinks throwing insults is the same as a solution.
I have chosen to not record what the leader of ACT said about doctors working in public health. It was another demonstration of ignorance toward skilled professionals just doing their jobs.
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