How disappointing to read that former health minister Dr Jonathan Coleman opposes his successor’s sense of responsibility for significantly reducing suicides. The waste of life is devastating, especially among young people.
Of course, Dr Coleman exclaims, "we" want to get the suicide rate down, but suicide prevention is "a whole of society problem and we all need to be involved", whether government agencies, employers, friends or families. That includes Dr Coleman too, but he resiles once more from the idea of a national health target to provide focus for concerted efforts to reduce suicide and attempted suicide. Is that why the national suicide strategy and action plan expired last year under his watch?
According to him, the replacement is still some months away.
Dr Coleman was New Zealand’s 39th Minister of Health and shares with Sir Maui Pomare (1923-26) the honour of being the only medical practitioners to have held that office.
Pomare and Coleman would each have taken the Hippocratic Oath or its internationally recognised modern equivalent, the Physician’s Pledge. Before being admitted to the medical profession these days, an aspiring doctor pledges to dedicate his/her life to the service of humanity; to make the patient’s health and wellbeing the doctor’s first consideration; to maintain the utmost respect for human life; and to preclude considerations of age, disease or disability, creed, ethnic origin, gender, nationality, political affiliation, race, sexual orientation, social standing or any other factor from standing between professional duty and patient.
Dr David Clark is not a medical doctor but he could claim to be ministering to the needs of people, in this case the New Zealand public, in a way that validates and applies the verb "minister" to a minister of the Crown as much as to a minister of religion. The Minister of Health makes no such pledge, but it is worth recalling that the portfolio was established in 1900 to ensure that the health of all New Zealanders was officially elevated "to a first place in the consideration of the government" and to "a first rank in the political order" in the same way as foreign affairs, mines, and agriculture, to use the language of the day.
Within a decade, the health portfolio absorbed all government responsibilities for health services.
We can be proud that New Zealand was the first Commonwealth country to have established a minister in Cabinet with official responsibility for protecting and promoting the health of the people of the nation.
Joseph Ward, the first health minister (1900-06), justified the move because "the health of the people of this country should be above party — should be beyond every other consideration than doing what we believe to be the interests of the people, and essential for the preservation of the health of the people".
Suicide prevention should be far removed from party politics.
The complex and interwoven social, educational, economic and cultural factors involved in suicide prevention need to be tackled holistically by genuine and concerted cross-party action.
We all owe it to those who left empty shoes or survived attempted suicide, and the family, friends, whanau and communities left heartbroken and confused.
Dr Coleman’s apprehension that an "accountability measure" for suicide reduction might come back to haunt a minister and his government seems out of step with the reasons that for 117 years have underpinned the office he held until recently.
Fortunately, such deviations from effective ministerial leadership in tackling the public health challenges of the day have been rare. I hope that as Opposition spokesperson on health, Dr Coleman will now cut the mustard and wholeheartedly work with his successor and the Government in a genuine cross-party endeavour to tackle this major blot on New Zealand society.
- Warwick Brunton is a historian, former Department/Ministry of Health policy analyst and retired teacher from the University of Otago department of preventive and social medicine.
NEED HELP?
• The Depression Helpline 0800 111-757
• Healthline 0800 611-116
• Lifeline 0800 543-354
• Samaritans 0800 726-666
• Youthline 0800 376-633 txt 234 or talk@youthline.co.nz
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Comments
I don't particularly care much for Dr. Coleman but it was actually Dr. Clark who pointed the finger at him and said he was responsible for the high suicide rate. I think it was no surprise that Coleman came back with the comment he did.