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Ian Powell
Otaihanga Second Opinion is a regular health systems blog in New Zealand.
Ian Powell is the editor of the health systems blog 'Otaihanga Second Opinion.' He is also a columnist for New Zealand Doctor, occasional columnist for the Sunday Star Times, and contributor to the Victoria University hosted Democracy Project. For over 30 years , until December 2019, he was the Executive Director of Association of Salaried Medical Specialists, the union representing senior doctors and dentists in New Zealand.
Ian Powell - Latest News [Page 5]
How Te Whatu Ora Can Succeed: Overcome A Structural Weakness
Wednesday, 18 January 2023, 10:04 am | Ian Powell
An omission from the Pae Ora Act is a major deficit, write political opposites Ian Powell and Heather Roy, in the second part of their series on Te Whatu Ora The New Zealand Public Health and Disability Act 2001 marked a return to cooperation from ... More >>
Barbados, Climate Injustice, And The Pursuit Of Wealth Accumulation
Wednesday, 11 January 2023, 8:04 pm | Ian Powell
On the eve of the 2017 general election in Aotearoa New Zealand, dramatic circumstances led Jacinda Ardern to assume the leadership of the Labour Party. In an outstanding media briefing she confidently asserted that a government led by her would be transformational ... More >>
Should The Prime Minister Go To Cop27? ‘Blood, Blood, Blood’
Thursday, 3 November 2022, 6:28 am | Ian Powell
Aside from trashing the British economy and a shorter lifespan than a lettuce, the prime ministership of Liz Truss will be remembered for dissuading the new King Charles from attending the Cop27 United Nations climate summit in Egypt’s resort city Sharm ... More >>
Uber, The ‘Lure’ And Carve-outs
Thursday, 27 October 2022, 7:26 pm | Ian Powell
Employment Court judge Christina Inglis in a landmark decision ruled that four Uber drivers were employees and not self-employed contractors has opened the gate for many other drivers to seek the protections of employment law. This follows a successful ... More >>
Professor Baker Is Right; New Zealand Needs Pandemic Political Leadership
Thursday, 20 October 2022, 6:25 am | Ian Powell
I’m not a Twitter fan. Instead I’m a reluctant user. However, I can only admire the precision of NZ Herald investigative journalist Matt Nippert who, on 12 October, tweeted the following: The lockdowns were the first to go; then the scanning; ... More >>
New Zealand’s ‘National Disgrace’: ‘One Of The Worst Places To Bring Up A Child’
Thursday, 6 October 2022, 6:47 pm | Ian Powell
David McCormack is a cardiothoracic surgeon employed at Waikato Hospital by Te Whatu Ora (Health New Zealand). He is also an Associate Chief Medical Officer and an Honorary Associate Professor of Surgery. Surgical precision He knows his clinical stuff. But ... More >>
What Drives Improved Health Outcomes?
Monday, 26 September 2022, 7:14 pm | Ian Powell
What is the biggest potential driver of improved health outcomes? Is it our public hospitals? Is it what happens in primary care which, in Aotearoa New Zealand, is largely provided by general practitioners? Or is it something else? There are also ... More >>
It Started With A Quip And Ended With Corporation Culture
Monday, 5 September 2022, 5:12 am | Ian Powell
Hot Chocolate’s ‘It Started with a Kiss’, first released in 1982, is a sweet romantic tune which reached Number 5 in the United Kingdom charts: Hot Chocolate: It started with a kiss . If ‘kiss’ was replaced with ‘quip’ the ... More >>
Time For New Zealand To Learn From Cuba On Vaccine Production
Monday, 29 August 2022, 7:02 am | Ian Powell
On 10 June 2021 the Democracy Project published my article on lessons that Aotearoa New Zealand should learn from Cuba’s extraordinary progress in Covid-19 vaccine production: Is Cuba the Covid-19 vaccine powerhouse? . The vaccine powerhouse ... More >>
Colossal ‘Porkies’ And Band-aids Don’t Make A Health Workforce Plan
Sunday, 7 August 2022, 6:06 am | Ian Powell
On 1 August Minister of Health Andrew Little announced what he described as the start of a plan for the beleaguered workforce in Aotearoa New Zealand’s health system: Government’s 5 year late health workforce announcement . In October 2017, ... More >>
Masks In Schools A Potential Circuit-breaker; But Wider Strategy And Hope Also Required
Monday, 25 July 2022, 6:40 am | Ian Powell
On 22 July it was reported by Stuff that Associate Minister of Education Jan Tinetti had made an important decision on masks in schools. It is a good decision but still short of what is required to reduce the reproduction rate of Omicron variant ... More >>
What Happens When A Health Minister Loses Workforce Trust And Confidence
Thursday, 21 July 2022, 8:01 pm | Ian Powell
On 4 July Stuff published my opinion piece on the angry behaviour of Minister of Health Andrew Little in publicly disparaging dedicated people and organisations strongly committed to the provision of accessible quality healthcare: Health Minister’s ... More >>
Fascism And The Anti-vaccination Protests In New Zealand
Wednesday, 6 July 2022, 6:03 am | Ian Powell
The violent nature of the anti-vaccination protests in Aotearoa New Zealand, including the occupation of Parliament Grounds and the nearby streets in February-March, have raised the question of whether this was an example of fascism in action or perhaps ... More >>
Train Wrecks And Election Outcomes
Thursday, 30 June 2022, 5:55 am | Ian Powell
On 19 June the Sunday Star Times published my column on the relationship between the Labour government’s stewardship of Aotearoa New Zealand’s health system and the outcome of the next general election expected to be around September-October ... More >>
Exploitation, Inequities And The Māori Health Authority
Tuesday, 21 June 2022, 7:52 pm | Ian Powell
On 15 June BusinessDesk published my article on the Māori Health Authority (MHA – Te Mana Hauora Māori): Māori Health Authority a good call but not a magic bullet . I argued that establishing the Authority, on 1 July, as a separate government ... More >>
Epiphanies And Health System Improvement
Thursday, 16 June 2022, 6:05 am | Ian Powell
Decades ago, when an impressionable young student at Victoria University, I participated in a student association meeting to debate a resolution that the two chaplains rooms (Anglican and Catholic) be removed from the student union building. With such a topic ... More >>
Global Food Systems And Contradictions
Monday, 6 June 2022, 4:33 pm | Ian Powell
Global food systems are not confined to production. There are also a massive complexity of commercial interactions. All this is in the context of an economic system we call capitalism which, while food access a public essential, due to own internal logic ... More >>
Scandal Or Temptation In The Health Restructuring Transition Unit?
Friday, 27 May 2022, 7:26 pm | Ian Powell
Although linked words, ‘scandal’ and ‘scandalous’ are not the same. Scandal is a noun for an incident or event that disgraces or damages the reputation of the persons or organisations involved. Scandalous is an adjective derived ... More >>
DHBs: “Nice Little Earners” For EY
Saturday, 21 May 2022, 5:20 pm | Ian Powell
On 5 May Newsroom published a revealing article by investigative journalist David Williams on the rapid increase of income earned by EY business consultants (formerly known as Ernst & Young) from Aotearoa New Zealand’s district health boards: ... More >>
Proposed Income Insurance Scheme
Sunday, 1 May 2022, 5:58 am | Ian Powell
The proposed ‘New Zealand Income Insurance Scheme’ (‘the scheme’) has attracted strong debate among the more left-wing and liberal groupings, within New Zealand-Aotearoa. This debate should be seen as a positive rather than negative tension because of ... More >>
