Thank you Dr Bloomfield

Covid Response Minister Chris Hipkins told resigning director-general of health Ashley Bloomfield "you have saved thousands, if not tens of thousands of lives".

Ashley Bloomfield. Photo: Getty Images
Ashley Bloomfield. Photo: Getty Images
Others are not so sure. Act leader David Seymour called his leadership a "disaster".

Like him or loathe him, Saint Ashley as he was called at the peak of his popularity in 2020, will go down in this country’s history for his pivotal and public role in the Covid response.

Whatever the criticisms, he was central to Government advice over the past two years. He was also crucial in rallying support for Covid strategies from much of the "team of five million".

He told us in advertisements to "Unite against Covid". And he fronted those 1pm conferences beamed into our homes, the "stand-ups", as he and others called them. All up, he spoke to the people in such forums about 300 times.

Whatever any inner turmoil, he came across as decent, thoughtful, compassionate and calm under pressure.

This public servant became the reassuring face of Covid as well as the object of adulation and celebrity. There were the T-shirts, the totes, the memes, the tea towels, the songs and the selfies.

Woe betide anyone in those early days who dared doubt the smoothly communicated messages of Ms Ardern and her right-hand man. National leader at the time Simon Bridges dared to raise legitimate questions and the public backlash was swift.

Not all was sweetness and light. Sometimes, his reassurances did not match the facts.

Dr Bloomfield, too, strayed from presenting straight information into government spin. Such propaganda was to be expected from Ms Ardern, a politician, but should have been less welcome from a civil servant.

Not that that put off the adoring public who saw this nice man doing his best to protect them.

As time went on, the unrealistic and impossible halo inevitably slipped somewhat. After everyone was told that border workers had been tested, a pesky journalist discovered that was not so. There were the contact-tracing failures and later overstating of its capacity, MIQ mistakes, misleading assertions on PPE supplies and slowness to bring in mask wearing and accept salvia testing.

Dr Bloomfield presided over a Ministry of Health, long known for its inadequacies, that was on several occasions not up to the job. It was sluggish to engage and co-operate with the private sector and lacked flexibility and responsiveness.

There remains the question on whether the Covid-19 response should have had its own agency rather than relying on the ministry. An organisation that had focused on policy and oversight was not up to the operations.

Not that Dr Bloomfield can be blamed for those failures and not that this takes away from Dr Bloomfield’s place overall. He gave his all and was, as Health Minister Andrew Little put it, heroic. He is clearly exhausted, and no-one begrudges him standing down from July.

This is especially so when the health system is about to undergo major structural change and, no doubt, disruption.

Overall, Dr Bloomfield has done well in his role leading New Zealand’s response to the global pandemic. He will go down as an important and respected figure in the history of this country.

We remember his calmness, his quiet smile, his reassuring familiarity and his "kia ora koutou katoa" sounding out across our televisions and radios. "There are . . . new cases today".

We also remember the way he tag-teamed with the PM, adjusting his glasses, nodding in her direction, and then saying: "Thank you Prime Minister".

It is fitting that we, the people of New Zealand, should now say: Thank you Dr Bloomfield.