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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 7]
The Madness Of Health System Restructuring In A Pandemic
Sunday, 19 December 2021, 6:40 pm | Ian Powell
Three main pillars were described in the ‘health reforms’ for New Zealand’s health system announced by Minister of Health Andrew Little in April. The ‘reforms’ are being lined up to take effect in July next year. Two of these pillars make good ... More >>
A Covid Graph That Reveals So Much
Thursday, 16 December 2021, 6:38 pm | Ian Powell
The Australian Department of Health, States and Territories regularly reports on a range of Covid-19 data such as daily infections and deaths. These reports also include hospitalisations (both in wards and in intensive care units). The data as ... More >>
Integrity And Vaccine Production: Lessons For New Zealand
Thursday, 9 December 2021, 5:32 pm | Ian Powell
Reputable medical journals such as the British Medical Journal (BMJ) are invaluable not just for doctors but for those that observe health systems and policies, both of which are intertwined with the practice of medicine and science. Nowhere are these ... More >>
‘Health Reforms’ Ernst & Young Revenue Stream
Tuesday, 7 December 2021, 10:20 am | Ian Powell
First published at https://otaihangasecondopinion.wordpress.com/2021/12/07/health-reforms-ernst-young-revenue-stream/ When the Labour Party came in power in 2017, leading a coalition government, it brought with it an understandable strong distrust of the Ministry of Health or at least its ... More >>
Commissioning And Contracting: Indicative Language For New Zealand’s Public Health System
Tuesday, 30 November 2021, 6:23 pm | Ian Powell
Recently I received a revealing email from an experienced hospital specialist who had been at the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists (ASMS) annual conference (virtual). The member expressed pleasure that Minister of Health Andrew Little did ... More >>
Distracted Health System Leadership Neglects Kidney Transplants
Thursday, 25 November 2021, 10:26 am | Ian Powell
There are few things more self-evident that when a government focusses on major health structural change. Pressing issues in the health system are neglected by the system’s political and bureaucratic leadership. This is self-evident in several ... More >>
A Very Scary Graph: Comparing Delta Variant In New Zealand And New South Wales
Wednesday, 10 November 2021, 7:40 pm | Ian Powell
According to Wikipedia data science is an inter-disciplinary field that uses scientific methods, processes, algorithms and systems to extract knowledge and insights from noisy, structured and unstructured data, and apply knowledge and actionable insights ... More >>
Was Delta Spread Inevitable In New Zealand?
Saturday, 6 November 2021, 9:04 pm | Ian Powell
It has become somewhat of a casual mantra that the arrival and subsequent spread of the most recent, contagious and deadly of the Covid-19 variants, known as Delta, in New Zealand was inevitable. If this was to be believed it meant that elimination ... More >>
Euthanasia And Palliative Care Funding: 'Horribly Distorted'
Sunday, 31 October 2021, 6:06 pm | Ian Powell
Dr Ben Gray is a very interesting doctor and one of the few that can lay claim to being a hippie back in the day: https://www.otago.ac.nz/news/news/otago824426.html . He is a medical graduate from the first class at the Wellington Clinical School ... More >>
Is Delta Plus Coming (the Boris Variant)?
Monday, 25 October 2021, 7:52 pm | Ian Powell
On 20 October the BBC published the kind of news that no-one would have wanted to know about: https://www.bbc.com/news/health-58965650 . The heading alone was scary: Covid-19: New mutation of Delta variant under close watch in UK . This possible new ... More >>
Jacinda’s Gladys Moment
Thursday, 21 October 2021, 6:05 pm | Ian Powell
Gladys Berejiklian is an experienced Australian Liberal Party politician. First elected to the New South Wales Parliament in 2003, in January 2017 she became the state’s 45th Premier. Just over three years later she had to confront her greatest ... More >>
Where Britain Goes Aotearoa Should Not Go
Monday, 18 October 2021, 12:52 pm | Ian Powell
Originally published at https://otaihangasecondopinion.wordpress.com/2021/10/18/where-britain-goes-aotearoa-should-not-go/ At the outbreak of World War 2 the country’s first Labour Party Prime Minister Michael Savage declared that wherever Britain goes, New Zealand goes. At time it ... More >>
Funding Of High-needs Primary Healthcare Needs An Overhaul
Thursday, 14 October 2021, 4:40 pm | Ian Powell
The negotiation process that regularly updates terms and conditions for general practice funding barely works for privately owned practices (mainly small businesses and providing the large majority of primary healthcare in New Zealand). It works ... More >>
Delta Response “Gutted” By Government Backdown
Tuesday, 12 October 2021, 7:03 pm | Ian Powell
At 4pm on Monday 4 October Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern gave a post-cabinet media conference to report on the latest decisions in the Covid-19 pandemic response, specifically the Delta variant outbreak. It was to be primarily about the future of the lockdown ... More >>
Mental Health Funding Mystery And Mischief
Saturday, 2 October 2021, 6:01 pm | Ian Powell
One of the difficulties that can occur in parliamentary politics is that the response of the government of the day responds to an opposition party spinning a yarn that makes it look bad is to either behave like a possum in the headlights or defensively ... More >>
Covid-19 Elimination Strategy, Smug Hermit Kingdoms And Kim Jong-Key
Monday, 27 September 2021, 3:23 pm | Ian Powell
There has been a growing number of voices calling for an end to New Zealand’s elimination strategy in the fight against Covid-19. Much of it comes from impulsive media ‘shock-jocks’ through sensationalist but misleading sound-bytes claiming ... More >>
Reputations In Tatters
Friday, 24 September 2021, 12:52 pm | Ian Powell
Originally published at https://democracyproject.nz/2021/09/24/ian-powell-reputations-in-tatters/ On 19 May 2021 the Democracy Project published an article by me discussing how a ‘very bureaucratic coup’ was successfully undertaken to undermine the district ... More >>
Government’s New Health Indicators Fail To Indicate
Saturday, 18 September 2021, 4:37 pm | Ian Powell
The recently announced new health indicators framework was promoted as a key transformational feature of the Labour government’s health system restructuring announced by Minister of Health Andrew Little last April. But for indicators to be indicators they have ... More >>
How has NZ performed on vaccines?
Tuesday, 14 September 2021, 11:50 am | Ian Powell
Late last year commentators generally recognised the public were appreciative of the effectiveness (despite some blips) of the government’s elimination of covid-19 community transmission strategy. New Zealand was one of a very small number of countries ... More >>
Media Muddle Muffles Canterbury DHB’s Deficit Importance
Sunday, 12 September 2021, 8:03 pm | Ian Powell
On 30 August the Press (part of the Stuff stable) published an article under the eye-catching headline ‘ Cash-strapped health board's operational deficit ballooning despite ambitious savings plan ’. The headline made the article a must-read. It ... More >>
