Accountability and the health system’s woes
Well said Elspeth McLean. Your opinion piece (ODT 3.9.25) says what many nurses will be feeling but may feel unable to say.
The reality is that the professional burden lies with those delivering patient care — it’s called professional accountability.
When mistakes occur the patient and the health professional bear the consequences which can be life-changing. It is not an outcome any nurse, doctor or allied health professional would ever want to occur.
Managers and governments come and go — many administrators seem to think they understand and can judge what it takes to be a proficient and qualified health professional; these roles have undue influence on how healthcare is delivered.
HNZ have appointed clinical leaders — roles that aim to provide leadership and advise management on clinical issues. Often clinical leader voices are subsumed by management decisions. This is not what we should accept within the healthcare environment.
If we are aiming for safe patient outcomes we must be prepared to speak up. It takes courage to speak up in a system where employee voices are silenced by recently introduced Pae Ora legislative reform.
Given the dire situation our health system faces I would encourage clinicians to speak up, use your professional voice and challenge the flawed process and decisions made by individuals not qualified to judge clinical risk.
[Dr Bradfield is the former chief nursing officer of the Otago District Health Board.]
Lead levels
Re the letter from Mike Palin (27.8.25), I was grateful and felt fully informed by his statement that: "There is no safe level of lead in one’s blood".
From Dr Mike Palin’s letter, I believe we should applaud and endorse Dunedin City Council for protecting our communities and next generation from the perils of lead-contaminated soil. We must ensure soil that may be lead-contaminated is dealt with under the DCC’s guidance and advice before any building project starts. Safety must be paramount, despite the cost.
Having a laugh
The chortling regarding the Albany St upgrade deserves a rebuttal.
I spent six years in Dunedin dodging traffic on Albany St. There are no pedestrian crossings between Cumberland St and Anzac Ave, despite its proximity to the city’s biggest employer and one of the country’s largest varsity campuses. Cyclists must pedal along a narrow street where they could be clipped by a car coming out of the several side streets.
Installing a cycleway along Albany St, linking the CBD with the harbour, was an excellent idea. It would have added to the city’s transport infrastructure as Dunedin enters a high growth phase over the next nine years.
Dunedin must look to its future; those who want the city to stay exactly the way it is and for infrastructure to stop expanding ignore the inevitable.
Bang for your buck
The item about Space X (ODT 28.8.25) prompts a query. The rocket is billed as reusable, yet once again it exploded after being used. Previous efforts seem to frequently explode before actually going anywhere.
The obscene amount of money and resources expended in what amounts to a firework display could possibly be used to ease the huge amount of suffering worldwide.
The report card is in and it is not that flash
The kindest way to address the failings of New Zealand Cabinet ministers to describe their skillset.
Listening skills: very selective. They will not listen to parents dealing with teenage vaping addicts, nor schools who are finding vapers difficult to identify. But they have listened to tobacco companies. They will not listen to the families of those killed or injured by drunken drivers, nor victims of family violence from those affected by alcohol, nor those with knowledge of Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder. But they have listened to companies promoting alcoholic drinks.
Mathematics skills: eager to promote them in schools but cavalier about statistics which they refuse to accept when they highlight problems with alcohol, tobacco, vaping, and workplace safety. Abandonment of the census is questionable.
Comprehension: needs improvement. Little understanding of past or future insights into damaging events such as climate change. Limited understanding of proven long-term health effects which will impact on already short-staffed and under-resourced health facilities.
Much improvement is needed to go from F (abject failure) to a C. I have restrained myself from saying "Could do much better".
Language my mother would have described as "unfit for a lady" or unpublishable might be a truer judgement but I have avoided that temptation.
Wānaka airport rumbles along
Superbly well said Ralph Fegan (Letters 2.9.25). For far too long have a "so called" majority group in Wānaka spread their alarmist message regarding the potential proposed future for the Wānaka Airport.
He being a well-respected and long-standing member of the community I fully support Ralph’s view of a positive expansion to allow the introduction of domestic "non-jet" propelled aircraft to cater for the need of an ever-growing Upper Clutha regional population base plus along as for tourism, personal and business purposes.
Reading your recent article on the next round of Wānaka Airport consultations (ODT 28.8.25) I was disappointed to see the parroting of the QLDC with no analysis. The article stated that there were weaknesses such as the airport not covering costs, being subsidised by ratepayers, and costs rising quickly as shown by Sounds Air pulling out.
However, as has already been pointed out, until 2018 the total cost of running the airport was less than $500,000 per year and the airport was consistently profitable. Perhaps the costs imposed by the QLDC itself, with its fourfold increase in fees and $400,000 in depreciation are the problem.
As seems to be the QLDC’s norm, it refuses to release sufficient information and details of all the costs for there to be a reasoned analysis. This gives the appearance of financial tricks to frame the desired story.
Some years ago, before I moved to Wānaka, I was at an Institute of Directors lunch sitting next to an airport director who described to me the development direction for the Wānaka Airport.
It was then, with some amazement on moving to Wānaka, that I heard the QLDC repeatedly deny exactly that direction.
Each time I read something from the QLDC it feels like their comms staff have massaged out any meaningful information. Hardly the operation of open democracy.
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