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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 9]
More Medical Student Places Good But There’s A Mammoth In The Room!
Tuesday, 27 June 2023, 10:50 pm | Ian Powell
The announcement by Minister of Health Dr Ayesha Verrall of the Government’s decision to increase the number of medical student places in our two university based medical schools (Auckland and Otago) was overdue (the last increase was in 2015) but welcome. ... More >>
On The Māori Health Authority
Friday, 23 June 2023, 7:50 am | Ian Powell
Rob Campbell on Māori Health Authority Rob Campbell appears to be on an adrenaline driven burst of writing since his dismissal as Chair of Health New Zealand (Te Whatu Ora) which shows no sign of diminishing. This is a good thing. I have a vested interest. ... More >>
Affectional Empathy And The Living Wage
Wednesday, 31 May 2023, 7:59 pm | Ian Powell
One of the things I get a buzz out of is trying to place a practical issue within a theoretical construct. I was prompted to give this a go after reading an article in the New York Review of Books published on 8 December 2022. The practical ... More >>
Showdown Time Over Hospital Laboratory Privatisations
Monday, 15 May 2023, 4:06 pm | Ian Powell
Developments are coming to a head over those of Aotearoa New Zealand’s public hospital laboratories which were privatised under both Labour and National led governments. This was foreshadowed in my recent column published by BusinessDesk: How to fix the ... More >>
What Does Being Left-wing Really Mean?
Monday, 1 May 2023, 6:23 am | Ian Powell
Wellington based academic political commentator Bryce Edwards is an asset for good political discourse in Aotearoa New Zealand. This is largely through his Democracy Project hosted by Victoria University. His NZ Politics Today providing links to published ... More >>
Put Patient-centred Care At The Core Of Health System
Friday, 21 April 2023, 7:01 pm | Ian Powell
In January this year my political opposite Heather Roy and I jointly published a paper under the title Te Whatu Ora: Achieving Patient Centred Care and Wellbeing : Achieving Patient-Centred Care and Wellbeing . What is patient-centred ... More >>
Health New Zealand Restructuring Threatens Health Localities
Wednesday, 12 April 2023, 8:43 pm | Ian Powell
Following his sacking as the Chair of Health New Zealand (HNZ – Te Whatu Ora), Rob Campbell threw a hand grenade into his former organisation by revealing that it was planning a full restructuring of “overhead roles” which would lead to ... More >>
Reducing Health Inequity
Sunday, 19 March 2023, 7:00 pm | Ian Powell
My final article published by BusinessDesk in 2022 (20 December) discussed the challenge of Aotearoa New Zealand’s health system reducing health disparities in order to reduce inequity as now expressly required by legislation: New health system can’t ... More >>
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 >>
