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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]
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 >>
An Unresponsive Prime Minister And Health Minister To A Best Endeavour
Sunday, 24 April 2022, 7:33 pm | Ian Powell
I have expressed my concerns in these postings and other media outlets about the Government’s decision, without mandate or engagement with the health sector, to abolish district health boards (DHBs) in Aotearoa New Zealand’s public health system ... More >>
Bye-bye Subsidiarity; Hello Democratic Deficit
Monday, 18 April 2022, 7:05 pm | Ian Powell
Every piece of parliamentary legislation has a ‘purpose’ clause describing the legal means or effect of the legislation, usually clause 3 which communicates its intent. The Pae Ora (Healthy Futures) Bill setting up the foundations of the New ... More >>
Strategic Covid-19 Direction Needed, Not Traffic Lights Red Herrings
Wednesday, 13 April 2022, 7:46 pm | Ian Powell
The debate over whether New Zealand’s Covid-19 ‘traffic lights’ system should be lowered from ‘red’ to ‘orange’ misses the point. In short, it is a red herring. The traffic light system is less about protecting the public and more about ... More >>
What Makes Good Public Health Sense Also Makes Good Sense For Other Things
Tuesday, 29 March 2022, 7:41 pm | Ian Powell
As my ‘love affair’ with New Zealand Aotearoa’s public health system grew over many years I learnt to pick up on a few soundbites that aptly summarised it. One was that if something made good clinical sense it would also make good financial ... More >>
More Harmful Than Flesh-eating Bugs
Thursday, 24 March 2022, 7:24 pm | Ian Powell
In 2003 Dr Peter Roberts published a book titled Snakes and Ladders: The Pursuit of a Safety Culture in New Zealand Public Hospitals . At the time Dr Roberts; an intensivist and physician, was completing his term as President of the Association ... More >>
Frailty, Dependency And Health Systems
Monday, 21 March 2022, 5:31 pm | Ian Powell
One of the things I enjoyed most when Executive Director of the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists (ASMS) was its annual conference, A feature was the enrichment provided by many engaging guest speakers on a wide range of pertinent subjects. At ... More >>
