Thousands have marched through major city streets and rallied in small towns across Aotearoa New Zealand as part of today’s “mega strike” of public workers.

More than 100,000 workers from several sectors walked off the job in increasingly bitter disputes over pay and conditions.

It was billed as possibly the country’s biggest labour action in four decades.

• READ MORE: Thousands of nurses, teachers and doctors take part in NZ’s ‘mega strike’
• Gerard Otto’s G News video commentary on the ‘mega strike’
• More photos and speech videos
• Other NZ public service reports

Strike action in Auckland’s Aotea Square.    Video: RNZ

Among those on strike were doctors, dentists, nurses, social workers and primary and secondary school teachers.

Several rallies were cancelled by severe weather in the South Island and lower North Island.

Many carried signs and chanted, cheered and danced as they made their way down.

Green Party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick said it was embarrassing that the government was labelling the action politically motivated.

“Of course this is political. Politics is about power and it’s about resources and it’s about who gets to make decisions that saturate and shape our daily lives,” she said.

There was a smaller, earlier rally in the morning in Henderson.

Tupe Tai from Western Springs College, who has been teaching for several decades, said the situation had become untenable.

“We’ve got really underpaid and overworked teachers, they need that support.”

She also said teachers needed an environment where they could work on the curriculum, have time to do it, but also have a life.

Hamilton
The crowd swelled to an estimated 10,000 in Hamilton’s rally.

Kimberly Jackson and her daughter were at the rally on behalf of her husband, a senior doctor who had to be at the hospital working as part of lifesaving measures.

“For us it is personal, but it’s also about this country that I love, that I’ve grown up in, and I can see terrible things happening in this country and I feel really passionate about public health care,” she said.

Jackson said she had seen the system deteriorate over her lifetime.

Chloe Wilshaw-Sparkes, regional chair of the Waikato PPTA said teachers were on strike because the offers from the government were not good enough.

“They’ve been saying ‘get round the table, have a conversation,’ but a conversation goes two ways and I think they need to be reminded of that,” she said.

Principal of Hamilton East School, Pippa Wright, was at the rally with some of the school’s teachers.

She said she believed in the NZEI’s principles, and she wanted changes which would ensure schools had really good teachers in front of students.

Wright also said pay rates needed to rise.

“So they’re not treated like graduates, and we need better conditions for teachers, and nurses, and all the public sector,” she said.

Northland
In Whangārei, the weather was sweltering and a stark contrast from conditions further south.

About 1200 people marched through several city blocks, after leaving Laurie Hall Park.

As well as teachers, nurses and other union members there were students and patients showing support.

Sydney Heremaia of Whangārei had heart surgery a few weeks ago but said he was marching to show his concern about staffing levels and creeping privatisation.

Deserei Davis, a teacher at Whangārei Primary School, feared there would be no new teachers soon if pay and conditions were not improved.

“We’ve voted to strike because we feel that the government hasn’t been addressing our issues, and especially at bargaining,” she told RNZ.

“The government scrapped pay equity claims. And that was a shocking blow to women in general, but an absolute shock and a blow for us women in education. And it’s completely scrapped it.

“More importantly, we are standing up for our tamariki, who are really poorly resourced in schools, in terms of support and the requirements coming down on teachers on a daily basis, on a monthly basis.

“It’s burning out our teachers. We’re fighting for our support staff, our teacher aides, the most vulnerable of all our staff who don’t have job security.”

She said the ministry’s offer was “absolutely atrocious”.

“$1 extra an hour over a period of three years. Like let that sink in. 60 cents one year, maybe 25 cents the following and 15 cents the following year. How does that keep up with the rate of inflation?”

Northland emergency doctor Gary Payinda told RNZ it was “pretty important to support our essential public services”.

“We don’t like what’s been going on. Then the understaffing, the refusal to acknowledge the severity of the understaffing and then, of course, pay offers that are below the cost of living, which means . . .  pay cut. None of those things seem fair to the group of public workers that are working harder than ever under huge demand.”

Striking staff called in after power outage
A union organiser said striking staff returned to Nelson Hospital to care for patients after its backup generator failed in a power outage.

The top of the South Island lost power on Thursday as wild weather hit the country. It began to be restored from 9.30am.

PSA organiser Toby Beesley said the generators at the hospital started, but it’s understood they blew out an electrical board, which led to a 45-minute total power outage.

“The senior leadership at Nelson Hospital reached out to us under our pre-agreed crisis management protocol that we’ve been working on with them for the last three weeks for an event of this nature, and they asked for additional PSA member support, which we immediately agreed to to protect the community.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

It is being billed as quite possibly New Zealand’s biggest labour action in more than 40 years.

It is the latest in a growing series of strikes and walkoffs this year, but the sheer size of it today means much of New Zealand will come to a halt.

Several public sector unions say the strike is going ahead in spite of wild weather across the country — though plans for some rallies may change due to conditions.

• READ MORE: RNZ’s live news blog

Papua New Guinea’s Chuave District Development Authority is condemning an attack on a priest and his team in Chimbu province.

Father Ryszard Wajda (SVD), three nurses, two doctors from Mingende hospital, and two Catholic education officers returned on a four-day foot patrol to Kiari in Nomane sub-district when they were attacked at Dulai village by villagers from Nomane.

The few villagers who fixed a damaged section of the Nomane feeder road demanded K1000 (NZ$425) from Father Wajda and his team and attacked them after alleging that they had missed out on disaster money given by Prime Minister James Marape to the province.

• READ MORE: Other PNG crime reports

Father Wajda, who is the parish priest of Wangoi in Chuave district, said that his team gave K200 (NZ$85) but the Dulai villagers refused this.

“The villagers directed violent abusive language to me and more to my team members,” he said.

He said that one of the education officers was punched several times, and others were violently pulled out of my parish vehicle.

“I stayed in the car, and nobody touched me physically,” he said.

Teacher intervened
Father Wajda said that they were allowed to travel after a teacher from the area intervened and assured the villagers that he would pay K1000 when he received his fortnightly pay.

He said that he had helped the local teacher last Friday to pay K1000 demanded by the villagers.

“It took us one day to walk and cross Waghi to visit my new Catholic community in remote Kiari at their request and spend four days with them addressing different issues,” he said.

Father Wajda said the nurses and doctors treated 200 patients during the three days working from 8am-11am every morning. He said the two education officers inspected the education institution.

“It took us 12 hours to walk back to Dulai and another village a few kilometres further up when my parish vehicle waited and picked us up,” he said.

He said that that the attack was unfortunate and local community leaders were negotiated fr a peace reconciliation.

Chief executive officer Francis Aiwa of Chuave District Development Authority (CDDA) said the attack on Father Wajda’s group was “uncalled for”.

He said that the perpetrators must be arrested and put behind bars.

The Catholic Church played an important role in the lives of everyone and such attack and killing of a priest are uncalled for and must not be repeated, Aiwa said.

Republished from the Post-Courier with permission.

Te Whatu Ora’s new winter health plan fails to address workforce shortages and staff burnout in Aotearoa New Zealand, frontline healthcare workers say.

The organisation launched its 24-point plan on Wednesday, saying it would help hospitals and GPs cope with an expected surge in patient demand over the coming months.

Under the plan, people with minor ailments will be able to be assessed by a pharmacist and given free or subsidised medication in line with if they had visited their GP.

• READ MORE: Other NZ public health reports

Family doctors will also be able to refer patients for X-rays and ultrasounds in a bid to reduce hospital admissions.

Regional and national escalation plans will be in place to help improve hospital capacity by “diverting resources and patients within and across regions to support under-pressure facilities”.

But a doctor from Middlemore Hospital’s emergency department, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said while diverting patients and resources sounded “good in theory”, there needed to be the staff available to deliver that plan.

There was so much burnout among doctors and nurses, she said.

“You can’t flog a dead horse.

Staff ‘not available’
“In practice these escalation plans involve going through a checklist of different resources that can be provided to help, but you then find out they aren’t available — due to staffing issues.”

A nurse from the hospital’s ED agreed chronic workforce shortages would prevent many of the proposals ever working.

“It all sounds all great, but where is Te Whatu Ora finding all the staff to do these things and how are they going to do it in a healthcare system that is already understaffed and in crisis?”

Giving pharmacists a greater role to play could also be problematic as they were also busy and were not trained to diagnose patient ailments, the nurse said.

In February, Te Whatu Ora identified Middlemore Hospital as one of eight national ‘hotspots’ needing extra support before the winter flu season.

Former chairperson Rob Campbell admitted the workforce shortages plaguing Middlemore’s ED would not be addressed in time for the flu season.

It followed comments from frontline healthcare workers who said the hospital’s ED was haemorrhaging staff and they were concerned about its ability to function during winter.

‘Doing what we can’
In a statement, Te Whatu Ora (Counties Manukau) interim lead of hospital and specialist services Dr Vanessa Thornton said while there had been growth in staffing numbers nationally, it needed to continue to grow its workforce.

“We know that pressure from shortages across our workforce is being felt on the frontlines of our health system. We can’t fix those shortages quickly – but are doing what we can to alleviate pressure and get more staff into our hospitals and other services.”

She said that includes making it easier for internationally qualified staff to work here and assisting qualified nurses to return to practice.

Local Democracy Reporting is Public Interest Journalism funded through NZ On Air. It is published by Asia Pacific Report in collaboration.

The mass migration of Fiji nurses could soon be curbed after the Health Ministry’s submissions to the government over the crisis.

Health Secretary Dr James Fong said justifications had been established in this submission on ways the ministry could retain nurses.

However, he would not want to preempt any decision by providing an update on this latest development.

• READ MORE: The Fiji nurse exodus

“So we will have to work out ways and means of facilitating retention and I think at the end of the day we have to look at something that’s broad,” Dr Fong said.

“It’s not only about looking at the salary restructure but also at other conditions beyond salary.

“I think that would be more cost effective in the long run than just looking at one aspect of the retention.”

Dr Fong believed the recently submitted submissions justified areas and ways in which the Health Ministry could better improve working conditions and salaries for nurses.

Health Minister Dr Atonio Lalabalavu had also indicated that countries in the region and around the world had been the recipient and benefactor of Fiji’s well-trained, experienced and capable health workforce and civil servants.

“Talk to any international expert in human resource for health and they will inform you that retiring employees early is not the strategy for staff shortage in health,” Dr Lalabalavu said during the Fiji Nursing Association’s 64th annual general meeting last weekend

“In fact, the opposite is true, you keep them longer while you build up the new intakes’ capabilities and skills.”

Siteri Sauvakacolo is a Fiji Times reporter. Republished with permission.

A senior health practitioner in Fiji has warned that the exodus of nurses will put significant strain on the country’s health sector.

According to orthopaedic surgeon Dr Eddie McCaig, nurses are leaving in droves, with more than 800 — more than a quarter of the workforce — migrating overseas in 2019 alone.

Dr McCaig told delegates at the inaugural National Economic Summit in Suva that healthcare workers were opting to exit because of several factors, but their primary concerns were poor compensation and working conditions, a challenging political environment, and to seek better opportunities for their children.

• READ MORE: Fiji’s economic summit addresses ‘daunting’ challenges, says Rabuka
• Other Fiji National Economic Summit reports

“Last year, we lost 807 nurses which equates to 26.7 percent of 3056 nurses,” he revealed on Thursday.

He said the standard of patient care provided by health care professionals had also declined because of socio-economic issues.

“We do not have the resources to provide all the care that is promoted by providers and desired and demanded by the public,” he said, adding that FijianS also had “unrealistic expectations”.

The Fiji government has allocated almost FJ$800 million to the health and medical services ministry in the 2021-2022 and 2022-2023 budget cycles.

However, ageing infrastructure and the inability to retain medical workers has remains a problem.

Less than a week ago, Health Minister Ratu Antonio Lalabalavu declared that his ministry would work to improve staff living and working standards.

According to FBC News, Ratu Lalabalavu has toured more than 50 of the 220 medical services facilities in the country.

The Health Minister found that the majority of the medical facilities were in unsatisfactory condition due to damaged infrastructure, lack of maintenance, as well as poor water and sanitation, the state broadcaster reported.

“The government of the day is ready to work with nurses and find solutions to their grievances and this will be done in a consultative manner,” Ratu Lalabalavu said at the Fiji Nursing Association annual meeting on April 15.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

About 50 striking nurses have held a protest in American Samoa over their employment conditions.

The protest yesterday follows some nurses at the LBJ Hospital who walked off the job on Friday after discovering their pay was lower than they expected it to be.

The striking nurses protested near the hospital about unpaid overtime and the hospital’s failure to pay them wage increments promised last week.

• READ MORE: Other American Samoa reports

One senior nurse told RNZ Pacific that with the LBJ Hospital hiring unlicensed nurses from Fiji, and accommodating them in hotels to await nursing school in January, it must be able to afford wage commitments to its current staff.

Two nurses who spoke on condition of anonymity to KHJ News said they were promised increases in their latest pay cheques, which were credited to bank accounts last Friday.

They said what they were promised and what was in their accounts did not match.

Those nurses who did receive pay increases are said to have received hikes ranging from 18 cents an hour to $1 an hour, but it is believed that some did not receive a pay rise at all.

KHJ News reports the nurses saying they work a minimum of 12 hours and the ratio is sometimes one nurse to 12 patients because of the acute nursing shortage.

They said this is against regulations and puts patients’ lives at risk.

Since Friday, contract nurses have been manning the wards and clinics, including newly hired ones from Fiji who have yet to undergo certification under US standards.

A meeting between the nurses and the board of directors and CEO of the hospital is due to take place.

Hospital management has yet to respond to media questions about the nurses’ action.

The CEO of the LBJ Hospital, Moefaauo William Emmsley, announced a week ago that the hospital had completed a salary reclassification for nurses which would bump up the entry rates for nurses and all salary levels.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ. 

An Aotearoa New Zealand health workforce recruiting agency is fielding calls from senior US doctors who say they can no longer live in their own country.

Accent Health Recruitment has been flooded with inquiries from US doctors wanting to come to New Zealand following the US Supreme Court’s decision overturning abortion rights last Friday.

The ruling has made access to abortions all but impossible in at least 18 states.

• READ MORE: Other reports about the US abortion court ruling

Accent Health Recruitment managing director Prudence Thomson said she normally got about 30 inquiries a day but that had doubled since the ruling.

“The emotion and frustration attached to their email, you could just feel it. They’re saying, ‘we can no longer live in this country, we need to come, will you have us in New Zealand?’

“It was quite an emotional tug, as far as of people really wanting to leave and throwing their hands in the air.”

Thomson said most inquiries were from GPs and obstetricians.

‘A spike in inquiries’
“There has been quite a spike in inquiries from them — they’re really passionate about looking after their patients and now they no longer are able to provide the healthcare they want,” she said.

“So they want to come to New Zealand to practise, which is good for New Zealand.”

Thomson said while it was sad these health workers felt forced morally to leave, it would help this country’s health worker “crisis”.

However, she said it would take at least six months before the American health professionals could work in New Zealand.

“Every medical professional needs to get their qualifications verified to come to New Zealand and that takes from three to six months.

“While we want to speed it up we don’t want to cut corners because in a crisis that’s when the weaknesses will be exposed and that’s when the people who want to commit identity fraud could get through.”

However, she said it should still give the chronically understaffed health sector some hope that help was coming.

Messaging about jobs
US nurse McKenzie Mills recently moved to New Zealand and said former colleagues had been messaging her about jobs ever since the US Supreme Court ruled against abortion.

She said she was heartbroken and angry after the ruling.

However, she said she was even more sure now that her decision to move to New Zealand in January was the right one.

“I take care of people and it just really broke my heart that there is so much health care that will be denied to millions of women.”

Mills said she felt like she had “escaped” her own country as a result of the ruling.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

The Fiji Women’s Rights Movement warned today that the value of midwives in the Pacific country was being undermined because of a lack of training and proper planning, and little urgency over the creation of positions.

In a message to mark the International Day of the Midwife on May 5, the FWRM highlighted the important role that midwives play in Fiji’s health sector for mothers and their newborn babies.

“The contribution of midwives to universal health coverage in terms of sexual, reproductive, maternal and newborn health, and strategies to fill the service gaps worldwide is rarely mentioned,” said the statement.

• READ MORE: Activist raises concerns about loss of nurses in Fiji
• Fiji nurses resigning because of stress, fatigue and lack of compensation
• Other reports on midwifery

“The barriers they face in their professional environment are not often highlighted.”

More than 65 percent of World Health Organisation (WHO) member states were reported 2020 to have less than 50 nursing and midwifery personnel per 10,000 population (about 40 countries in the WHO African region and 25 in the WHO Americas region).

In many countries, said the statement, nurses and midwives constituted more than 50 percent of the national health workforce.

Pacific data on midwives was limited, the statement said.

Nurses resigning
Earlier this year, Fiji Nursing Association president Dr Alisi Vudiniabola warned that nurses were resigning because of stress, fatigue and lack of compensation.

The same was stressed by Shamima Ali of the Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre.

“We see that nurses are leaving for greener pastures and inexperienced nurses are being promoted to lead units in divisional hospitals which means an impact on service delivery,” said the statement.

In the same article covered by The Fiji Times, Dr Vudiniabola shared a report from one hospital where the nurse manager had been working alone, looking after 28 patients as most of the nurses were “sick and tired”.

“The same is for midwives,” said the FWRM statement. “Midwife training is undertaken with no proper planning or positions being created, or positions are often held up, further undermining the value of midwives and the urgency of their work.”

According to the WHO, healthcare provided by midwives who were educated and regulated according to global professional standards was defined as a core strategy for decreasing maternal mortality rates and improving reproductive, maternal, and newborn health.

Midwives could provide 87 percent of sexual, reproductive, and maternal health services but before that can happen, such services needed to be legislated and regulated.

“An enabling environment that allows midwives to offer this full scope of services must be provided.”

Fiji’s commitments
Fiji had made its commitment to Sustainable Development Goals 3 and 4 addressing a reduction in maternal mortality rates but this had not been implemented, said the statement.

Based on reports received, midwives with relevant qualifications like such as the Post Graduate Diploma in Midwifery, Masters in Midwifery were still earning less than F$35,000 a year.

This was the case even when the scope of their work covered areas such as ante-natal clinic consultation, public awareness, births and deliveries, post-natal, retrieval of obstetric and gynecology emergencies in the field (usually handled by doctors), pediatrics, maternal child health, and public health (including immunisation to pre-school for the child).

Midwives also undertake administrative documentation, including maintenance of data repositories, which were not used by the Ministry of Economy in formulating national budgets.

As health communities in Fiji and globally marked International Midwives’ Day today, the FWRM urged the government and the health ministry to place more emphasis on the role of midwives in the health sector.

Queen’s Service Medal for NZ midwife
In New Zealand, midwives’ advocacy was marked on International Midwives’ Day when the Governor-General, Dame Cindy Kiro, presented Pukekohe midwife Claire Eyes with the Queen’s Service Medal at a Government House investiture ceremony which also recognised several covid-19 pandemic response and other service leaders.

Eyes had also assisted midwifery in the Pacific through Rotary and had organised leadership training for midwives and nurses in Australia.

Her citation said in part: “[Claire Eyes] helped prevent closure of the Pukekohe Maternity Unit in the 1990s and secured funding to start the Pukekohe Maternity Resource Centre.

“She was president of the New Zealand Nurses Organisation Franklin Branch. She was involved with negotiations for pay parity for nurses and midwives and assisted the Ministry of Health to set up a structure for midwives providing lead maternity care.

“She was NZNO representative to the New Zealand Council of Women.”

Yap State Governor Jesse Salalu has declared a state of emergency over a mass resignation of 40 doctors and nurses at Yap State Hospital after authorities declined to consider their grievances.

“Due to the sudden departure of staff, the Department of Health Services is now in need of finding and recruiting qualified nurses and doctors to fill vacancies, so as to minimise disruptions to its operations and services,” stated the emergency declaration.

“There is no sufficient pool of qualified nurses and doctors available on island for immediate recruitment to help prevent or minimise disruptions to the operation and services of the hospital,” Governor Salalu said in his emergency declaration on March 31.

• READ MORE: Public health in FSM
• Covid updates in other Pacific states

The emergency status authorises the Department of Health Services to work with Waab Community Health Center to allow the sharing and realignment of human resources to the main hospital.

DHS will also look into the possibility of rehiring local retired medical professionals on a temporary basis.

Led by Dr James Yaingeluo, the doctors and nurses handed in their resignations on March 29 after Salalu declined to hear their grievances.

When Salalu failed to appear at a meeting requested by the medical staff, a representative from the Office of the Attorney-General and a cabinet member refused to discuss the matter with them.

Severe understaffing
Among the grievances are persistently severe understaffing, low salaries resulting in the inability to attract and keep qualified professionals, working without contracts, and the Yap State Legislature’s refusal to release JEMCO-approved Office of Insular Affairs grant funds for wage increases.

Many of the unresolved issues that date back to 2019 have been exacerbated during the pandemic.

Yap is reported to have the lowest pay rates in FSM’s health care sector and has difficulty recruiting qualified doctors and nurses due to the higher compensation offered by other health care institutions in the region.

This is especially true since the onset of the covid-19 pandemic when health care professionals began receiving significantly higher offers from employers.

A year ago, then Governor Henry Falan submitted a supplemental budget request to the Yap State Legislature. Included in the request was $108,614 for doctors’ salaries. The money had been approved by JEMCO, granted by OIA and sourced from the Compact Health Sector.

Dr Mandela A. Bodunrin, the hospital’s then chief-of-staff who has since left, requested the grant to increase doctors’ salaries in order to fill open positions for doctors that were going unfilled.

DHS was unable to compete in the marketplace for the talent it required at the salary levels it was offering.

Further review needed
The legislature has the power to approve all OIA grants prior to their release, but the finance committee stated that further review was needed.

The doctors then on-staff signed temporary contracts at the pay level authorised in the prior budget year while they awaited the legislature’s approval of Falan’s supplemental budget request.

Their overtime and on-call remuneration tapped out the DHS’s FY2021 budget early due to the dearth of doctors.

The temporary contracts expired in February 2021. The money from the grant was “to ensure continuity of the compensation until September 30, 2021,” Falan said. The money would not come from the state’s general fund.

Understaffing and the inablity to attract qualified professionals became an even larger concern as the pandemic rapidly grew in importance within the medical community and compensation ballooned worldwide.

During one of the meetings of the state’s emergency task force addressing covid-19, it was revealed that a number of nurses stated that they would quit once the border was opened and the first case was identified, adding another layer of stress to an already overburdened organisation.

Yap’s border has been closed since April 2020. Repatriation of the state’s citizens who are stranded off-island has been in fits and starts, challenging the small medical team to manage quarantine and testing protocols while tending to the daily needs of the hospital’s patients.

Repatriation flight postponed
The most recent announcement for a repatriation flight arriving from Guam on Wednesday has been postponed.

A team from the FSM Department of Health was on Yap the week of March 27 assessing the state’s readiness to reopen its borders. Their report is being awaited but the lack of medical personnel will now undoubtedly influence that decision.

According to the Yap State Constitution, employees “have the right to form associations for the purpose of presenting their views to the government” and to be “free from restraint or reprisal in exercising this right.

The government shall give reasonable opportunity to representatives of such associations to present their views.”

However, it also states that “employees, whether or not exempted by the public service system, shall not strike or cause work stoppage for the purpose of collective bargaining or presenting their views.”

Further, “the regulations shall prescribe a system for hearing the views of employees on their working conditions, status, pay and related matters and for hearing and adjudicating grievances of any employee or group of employees.

“These regulations shall ensure that employees are free from coercion, discrimination, and reprisals and that they may have representatives of their choice.”

Dominic Taruwemai, the acting DHS director, has not accepted the doctors’ and nurses’ resignations as of this writing.

Joyce McClure is an American journalist who lived on Yap for five years and is now based in Guam. She is a contributor to the Pacific Island Times. This article is republished with permission.

A New Zealand nurse has been referred to a professional conduct committee by the Nursing Council after posting threats online against medical professionals involved in the national covid-19 vaccine rollout.

Multiple agencies are investigating after the registered Dunedin nurse posted a video to social media “declaring war” against covid-19 vaccinators and calling medical professionals taking part in the vaccine rollout her “enemies”.

Under the pseudonym Lauren Hill, the nurse posted a message to an anti-vax group on social media app Telegram.

• READ MORE: Other NZ covid outbreak reports

In the video she said she was in a rage and called on the Prime Minister, the Covid-19 Response Minister and the Director-General of Health to “cease and desist” in the rollout of the vaccine to five to 11-year-olds.

RNZ can confirm the woman in the video is Dunedin nurse Lauren Bransgrove, who has been taking part in Voices for Freedom anti vax events in the southern city.

The Ministry of Health is aware of the matter and has said they were concerned.

Police, ACC and the Nursing Council are also aware of the post.

‘Resistance’ to monitor schools
In the message, Bransgrove called on fellow antivaxxers — referring to them as “the resistance” — to organise and prepare to monitor schools every day so they could attack vaccination buses when they turned up.

“We do everything we can to stand in the way of you injecting this poison into our children. We will rip the bribes from your hands, we will slash your tyres, and we will remove the poison from the truck. This is not inciting violence, this is inciting self-defence, especially for our youngest people,” she said during the two minute and 23 second long rant.

“So cease and desist now, because this is war. And to the doctors and nurses that are still allowing this to happen, that have seen what is happening in the hospitals and refuse to speak out, I do not consider you a colleague, I consider you an enemy.”

Medsafe is currently assessing an application to administer Pfizer’s covid-19 vaccine to children aged 5-11.

The vaccine would be one-third of the dose of that administered to those 12 and older, of which more than 7.8 million doses have been given in New Zealand.

The vaccine has been deemed safe and effective by the vast majority of experts, both in New Zealand and globally.

‘Long covid’ symptoms
While the risk of serious covid-19 infection is far lower among children, covid-19 has been one of the top 10 causes of death of children aged five-11 in the US over the past 12 months.

A large study of children in the UK aged 11-17 also found as many as one in seven might still show symptoms of the illness three months after infection, commonly known as “long covid”.

So far, millions of doses of the vaccine have been administered to children aged 5-11 in the US.

Medsafe says it has completed its initial assessment of the application and has received a response to its request for additional information from Pfizer.

It intends to make a decision regarding approval this month.

Bransgrove lists her occupation as a clinical advisor for ACC.

Before that she spent 15 years working as a nurse, including a role as a theatre nurse in a private hospital for seven years.

She completed her training through Otago Polytechnic.

Multiple agencies investigating
A Ministry of Health spokesperson confirmed multiple agencies were investigating the video and its contents.

“The Ministry of Health is very concerned about this and is looking into this as part of a multi-agency approach,” the spokesperson said.

Police also confirmed they were making inquiries into the matter.

The Nursing Council confirmed it had referred the matter to a professional conduct committee.

When a few thousand people marched onto Parliament grounds on November 9 with a mish-mash of gripes with government, Bransgrove took part in a similar but much smaller gathering in the Octagon in Dunedin.

Carrying a sign which read “Nurse of 20 years My Body/Choice”, she spoke to RNZ, but refused to provide her last name.

“I am a nurse who went to Otago Polytechnic, I spent many years in the operating theatre helping the people of New Zealand, I now work for a public agency which I will not name,” she told RNZ.

‘Many vaccine injuries’ claim
She went on to claim many vaccine injuries were being reported to ACC.

When asked how many vaccine injuries had been reported, she responded: “Well I don’t know exactly, but I know they’re being accepted”.

By November 27 ACC had received 1179 claims stemming from covid-19 vaccination treatment injuries.

Of those, 448 had been accepted and 260 declined with 471 yet to be decided.

Allergic reaction accounted for nearly half of the claims, with bruises and sprains the next most common injuries.

No deaths had been lodged with ACC.

To date Medsafe has said one death is likely linked to the covid-19 vaccine and has been referred to the coroner.

‘More going online’
When provided treatment injury numbers as these stood at the time, Bransgrove responded: “I don’t know the number but there’s a lot more going on online.”

“When you go on these groups online, because you can’t see any of this on the news because it is not reported, when you see real people with real injuries and real deaths, you’re going to have to start to wake up.

“This is not about health, this is about control, this is about totalitarianism,” she said.

She claimed she did not care if she lost her job as she believed she would look back on the time and find herself on the right side of history.

When asked why countries with high vaccination rates had low death rates from covid-19, she responded: “Tell me about Israel”.

At the time of the conversation, Israel’s daily case count was less than 10 percent of the peak of the delta outbreak (when 10,000 new cases were reported a day).

That decline in case numbers followed a successful and widespread booster programme in the country.

Israel now has a seven-day average of about 600 cases a day, while the average of daily deaths has been less than 10 since late October and now sits at about two deaths per day.

Many others ‘concerned’
Bransgrove told RNZ there were many others similarly concerned by the vaccine and terrified to speak out.

ACC moved this evening to distance itself from Bransgrove.

“We are urgently investigating this matter,” ACC chief executive Megan Main said in a statement.

“ACC in no way condones threats of violence under any circumstances.

“We have encouraged all of our staff to get vaccinated as the best measure to protect themselves and others against Covid-19. We have instituted a policy requiring all our staff to be vaccinated in order to be on any ACC site from 15 December.

“The opinions expressed in no way represent the views of ACC.”

Anti-vaccine posts removed
Bransgrove earlier told RNZ she worked from home five days a week and so would not be subject to the vaccination policy.

ACC would not comment on whether Bransgrove had been suspended.

Earlier today she removed anti-vaccine posts — including a threat against the Deputy Prime Minister — from her social media accounts.

Anti-vaccine group New Zealand Doctors Speaking Out with Science claimed it had the support of 105 doctors.

In contrast an open letter from doctors supporting covid-19 vaccination had more than 6500 signatures.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

As New Zealand readies for more covid-19 cases, warnings about the ability of public hospitals to cope are escalating.

There are 289 intensive care unit (ICU) or high dependency unit (HDU) beds at the moment, with Minister of Health Andrew Little insisting that could be ramped up to 550 if needed.

But that has been roundly questioned by opposition MPs, clinicians and ICU experts, including a recent New Zealand Medical Journal article concluding fully staffed, extra capacity would be more like 67 beds.

It describes New Zealand’s “comparatively low ICU capacity” as a “potential point of vulnerability” in the covid-19 response.

Intensive care
There is a reason it is called intensive care.

Patients there are so sick, each one has a nurse with them around the clock.

Those there because of covid-19 are usually struggling to breathe, their lungs unable to give their body all the oxygen it needs to function.

There are doctors, physios, pharmacists who come and go to give vital care but it is the nurses who are the constant.

That’s why the shortage of ICU nurses is at the heart of the debate.

New Zealand’s intensive care was already in a perilous position long before covid-19, with one of the lowest number of beds per capita in the developed world.

Doctors and nurses have been asking for help for 10 years, failing to make meaningful traction with successive governments.

The small community pulled together, pooled resources, when crises like the White Island eruption and the mass shooting in Christchurch hit.

But covid-19 is different. It is here for longer and will hit everywhere.

Political football
Little is “assured that we will manage and we will cope”.

High vaccination rates will mean fewer people will actually end up in hospital and “the vast majority who then get infected will be able to be cared for in the home with appropriate sort of monitoring, the stuff we’re putting in place at the moment”, he says.

He acknowledges any move to surge up would mean deferred operations for things like hip and knee replacements, and people needing a lower level of care getting it somewhere other than a hospital.

“The impact will be on non-covid patients who can be safely referred to other places for their care and recovery at the hospital.”

National Party MP Shane Reti says there are simply not enough specialist ICU nurses.

“Five point three nurses [needed per ICU] bed, it’s orphaned out and what we know from specialists … is that instead of the hundreds of beds that Andrew says we’ve got we’ve probably only got about 67 to surge to.”

Not wanting to sound like a “political caricature”, Little, however, lays the blame at the feet of the previous National government.

Heath underfunded
“Our ICU capacity – if we’re talking about just designated ICU wards, and ICU beds, yep, that’s been a long standing problem … the reality is health has been underfunded for a long time, particularly when it comes to health facilities and buildings,” he says.

He is confident any outbreak can be managed, saying expanding to 500 or so beds would require an increase to about 200,000 covid-19 patients across the country.

However, Reti says that the May 5 public sector pay freeze has impacted on staffing, with some going to Australia, and that New Zealand’s now competing with the world for ICU nurses with an immigration system that’s not friendly to them.

Nursing shortage
Even with the known nursing vacancies, New Zealand’s needs could be met with the training of about 1400 more nurses to work in ICU under supervision, Little says.

Through May 2020 till mid August this year, there were no new, resourced ICU beds in Auckland DHB, but the ICU nurse headcount dropped from about 250 to just over 212.

Reti says the nursing shortage is a major obstacle.

“When Minister Little says, ‘I’ve trained up 1400 ICU nurses’ — no you haven’t, what you’ve done is you’ve given them half a day’s online training and half a day on a mannequin.

“In no shape or form is that an ICU nurse — they’ll be valuable, don’t get me wrong — but valuable for turning patients in ICU?”

Auckland has the biggest ICU unit in the country, and needed to find nurses from across New Zealand on September 1 when eight active cases arrived there, he says, showing just how thin the margins are.

On the ground
Vice-president of the Australasian College of Intensive Care Rob Bevan says right now intensive care is coping well.

That is due, in large part, to high — and rising — vaccination rates and the fact that Auckland’s been in lockdown.

Quieter lives mean fewer car accident and workplace falls, while hospitals have delayed many of the planned operations which might involve ICU recovery.

But Dr Bevan, a specialist at Auckland’s Middlemore Hospital, says more beds will be needed next year when covid-19 is in the community and life was comparatively back to normal.

“There is going to be a burden of covid that people will need hospitalisation and intensive care for that we need to add onto what we were doing before,” he says.

“And acknowledging that our intensive care bed capacity before was still not enough to care for everybody without resorting to the deferment of planned care on occasion.”

Many who work in intensive care say the government and health bosses are wrong to count physical beds (and the equipment that comes with them) when there are not enough nurses to use them all.

Shocked by ‘training’
When they said they were training other nurses to help in ICU, the nurses organisation kaiwhakahaere Kerri Nuku said she was shocked to learn what that meant.

“Four hours online training — to go and support in ICU. Those decisions about what’s in the best interests of nursing have not been made for nurses,” she said.

Indeed, specialist ICU nurses say they would have to spend time supervising the online trained back-ups, adding more work to an already very challenging job.

And Bevan says surging up to more than 500 beds is not a realistic picture.

“That is a crisis, short term, and largely unsustainable model that we would have had to have moved to had we been overwhelmed like they have been in other parts of the world,” he says.

“But that would most likely achieve worse outcomes for all patients in ICU than they have in other parts of the world compared with our best model of care that we’ve been able to provide to date.”

The message is starting to get through to those who made decisions, he says.

Intensive care meetings
Intensive care bodies are meeting with the Ministry of Health twice a week and there is work underway to try to recruit more nurses from overseas, he says.

But it has to go beyond talk and into action, first to sort the short term problem but then to keep building on that over the next several years.

“The next pandemic is inevitable … it might be in 10 years, it might be in 100 years, but it is coming,” Bevan says.

Little says he has also asked for decisions on three DHBs proposals expanding ICU capacity to be “accelerated”, but even then, those “will be some months away — they won’t be instant”.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Auckland is a thousand nurses short and lacks the capacity to deal with the amount of people self-isolating at home, according to New Zealand’s largest nurses’ union.

There are currently 85 covid-19 patients in hospital, including 11 in intensive care, and numbers are expected to climb.

The Nurses’ Organisation spokesperson Christina Couling said patients were at risk because there were not enough nurses even at this stage of the outbreak, and the system was under enormous strain.

• READ MORE: Other NZ covid lockdown reports
• RNZ’s covid live news blog

She said it simply did not have the capacity to deal with the number of people who were self-isolating at home, with several hundred referrals to district health boards (DHBs) each day.

Another 201 covid-19 community cases were reported by the Ministry of Health today, including 15 in Waikato, one in Taranaki, four in Northland and the rest in Auckland.

The ministry said 109 of today’s cases were still to be linked. There have now been 755 unlinked cases in the past 14 days.

“We are very aware of the grief and hurt whānau who have recently lost loved ones to covid-19 are experiencing. This is a serious virus and none of us can afford to underestimate it,” Director of Public Health Caroline McElnay said at today’s media conference.

She urged people whose relatives were being cared for in the community and felt their condition was deteriorating to contact someone as soon as possible.

“Hospital care is free, and ambulance services are free for those with covid-19.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

A Pacific public health expert says a premature transition of covid-19 restrictions in New Zealand could be lethal for Māori and Pasifika communities.

The government is under increasing pressure to ease restrictions in Auckland with National saying it would set a six-week deadline for ending lockdowns and that a target of 85-90 percent vaccination rates were “do-able” within that timeframe.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern on Monday revealed the city would remain in alert level 3, step 1, and signalled the government would reveal a covid-19 protection plan on Friday.

• READ MORE: Covid-19 “tsunami coming”: Emergency nurse says lack of planning causing anxiety
• Other NZ covid lockdown reports

But Auckland University public health associate professor Collin Tukuitonga said easing restrictions before vaccination rates among the most at risk communities of Māori and Pasifika were high could be a death sentence.

“It is abundantly clear that Māori and Pasifika people will have more infections, more of them will go to hospital and more of them will die,” he said.

“Fortunately we haven’t had the deaths here that has been apparent in other countries. But clearly if we move prematurely the people at risk will pay the price.”

Hospitals ‘not ready for covid-19 tsunami’
Meanwhile, an Auckland emergency nurse and nursing union delegate told RNZ Morning Report today that overworked nurses feared hospitals were not ready for the “covid-19 tsunami” – and often thought about quitting.

Hospital admissions have climbed to 43, and Middlemore Hospital expects to see 20 cases a day through its emergency department next month.

The Ministry of Health yesterday reported 60 new community cases, a drop from Tuesday’s record 94 cases.

The nurse, who works in one of Auckland’s emergency departments (ED), said many of her colleagues finish shifts wondering if they would come back for the next one.

“The nurses are really, really feeling it – feeling really anxious. They feel like there’s a tsumani coming. They can see it coming … and what do they do? Do they run towards it or do they back off?”

Her own ED was often short by three or four nurses, or a couple of health care assistants, a shift, she said.

“On a daily basis we are getting texts to say, ‘can you pick up this shift?’. It is becoming a dire situation right now,” she said.

It was made worse because staff regularly needed to isolate because they were case contacts, she said.

The nurse, a delegate for the Nurses’ Organisation, said that if they could not staff the shifts, it made for a high pressure day for those left behind, she said.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

France has declared a health emergency in New Caledonia after covid-19 was detected in the community, RNZ Pacific reports.

The state of emergency was decreed by the French Prime Minister Jean Castex, effective immediately.

The decree, which is valid for a month, allows the authorities to impose restrictions, such as curfews or a lockdown — which the New Caledonian government had already imposed on Tuesday.

• READ MORE: Three delta cases of covid detected in New Caledonia – schools closed
  
• New Caledonia begins two-week lockdown in new covid-19 outbreak
• Other New Caledonian covid crisis reports

Southern province schools were also closed from Monday afternoon.

Today, a law is expected to pass in the French Senate to extend the health emergency in several French overseas territories, including New Caledonia and French Polynesia, to the middle of November.

A government statement said the pandemic had turned into a “health catastrophe” in New Caledonia because hospital capacity was limited, and people had made little use of the access to vaccines.

Les Nouvelles Calédoniennes reported today that there were 66 positive cases in the community after health authorities announced three on Monday night.

The government reported 16 covid-19 cases yesterday, but provincial and local authorities had warned the number was fast rising.

Medical experts in New Caledonia warned last month that the number of vaccinated people needed to be doubled within weeks, prompting the territorial government last Friday to make vaccinations compulsory for adults.

They also said the territory only had about one third of the number of nurses needed to be able to use the intensive care units available.

The virus is now said to be in wide circulation, and yesterday the public was told that in two to three weeks the hospitals would be full.

Until the latest outbreak on Monday, New Caledonia had recorded fewer than 140 covid-19 cases and there had been no fatality.

Since March 2020, the borders have been closed and people allowed to enter have had to spend two weeks in government-run isolation facilities.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

RNZ News

The Auckland Hospital nurse who has tested positive for covid-19 worked four shifts not knowing she had the virus, says New Zealand’s Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield.

The 21-year-old nurse is a flatmate of a man who worked with the first case to be discovered and announced yesterday. She was fully vaccinated, the Ministry of Health said earlier.

Auckland Hospital had written to all staff asking them to stay home if unwell, to wear masks and to restrict their movement around the central city buildings as much as possible.

• READ MORE: Cook Islands suspends travel bubble with New Zealand – 5 delta cases
• RNZ covid live updates
• Other NZ covid reports

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said there had not been any cases from New South Wales at Auckland Hospital.

Dr Bloomfield said there was no suggestion that the nurse worked in any other health facilities.

There are two new cases of covid-19 in the community, in addition to the four announced earlier today.

Dr Bloomfield said that brought the total number of community cases to seven.

All case friends
He said the two new cases were linked to the current outbreak and were in Auckland. They are friends with the four cases reported this morning.

Dr Bloomfield said there were also three cases in managed isolation.

The other four cases found earlier today include a work colleague of the case found yesterday, who is a 20-year-old man. He has three flatmates — including the Auckland Hospital nurse — and has been working in recent days.

There is also a 25-year-old teacher at Avondale College and a 29-year-old man.

The two more recent cases found today include a 21-year-old woman and 19-year-old man who both live in Auckland and are linked to the current cases as friends.

The wife of the original case has returned a second negative test.

Dr Bloomfield said contact tracing capacity had been increased, and with the latest cases being active young people in their 20s, there were expected to be many locations of interest.

Locations updating
Those locations would be constantly updated as more information comes to hand, he said.

Dr Bloomfield said calls to Healthline should be restricted to seeking a test.

On genome sequencing, Prime Minister Ardern said overnight it has been confirmed that the outbreak was the delta variant, and that it was linked to the NSW outbreak.

She said only three positive cases had arrived into MIQ from Sydney since 1 July. One on August 9 on their day 1 test, and two on August 14 on their day three test.

These three cases were being genome sequenced right now, as part of the usual processes, Ardern said.

Ardern said everyone who came from NSW and Queensland was compliant with the travel restrictions.

She said despite that, the government was preparing to contact all cases who had arrived from Australia should they find the community case was not linked to the three positive cases from MIQ.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

A New Zealand doctors’ union fears the Waitematā District Health Board is covering up mistakes that led to seven of its staff contracting covid-19 coronavirus.

Staff from Waitākere Hospital tested positive for the coronavirus after patients from St Margaret’s Hospital and Rest Home in Auckland were moved there.

The Resident Doctors Association said the the District Health Board (DHB) had failed to answer questions about the outbreak and workers at the hospital were increasingly nervous.

READ MORE: Al jazeera coronavirus live updates – WHO has 7 or 8 ‘top’ virus vaccine candidates

The seven people who contracted covid-19 at Waitākere Hospital were all nurses, but Dr Deborah Powell from the Resident Doctors Association said it could have been anyone.

“It could’ve been a cleaner, it could’ve been a resident doctor, it could’ve been a laboratory phlebotomist.”

It was not yet clear how the nurses caught the disease.

Health officials are investigating whether they were infected through environmental contamination, after the DHB ordered an urgent review into the outbreak this month.

Unions want answers
Dr Powell said the unions representing hospital workers wanted answers now, and their repeated questions to the DHB had fallen on deaf ears.

“The unions have said to the District Health Board ‘we’re not interested in blame here, we’re interested in what went wrong so we can learn from it, that’s what we do in health’. We don’t get better unless we understand where we’ve made mistakes or we could’ve done things better.”

Unions wanted to know why the nurses and doctors treating patients infected with covid-19 were able to move between wards and why their personal protection equipment appeared to have failed, Dr Powell said.

Dr Powell also wanted to know why the St Margaret’s patients were taken to Waitākere Hospital in the first place.

“When we went into lockdown, vulnerable workers in health were moved away from the frontline, they were moved away from potential covid cases and quite a few of our North Shore people were put at Waitākere, the vulnerable people, because it was meant to be kept away from covid. The covid ward is at North Shore hospital.”

Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield said the patients were moved to Waitākere Hospital because of the level of care they required, and because “it was also closer to their whanau in their community”.

Waitematā DHB declined RNZ’s request for an interview. RNZ also contacted some of the elected members of the DHB, but all declined to comment.

Review details
The urgent review’s terms of reference obtained by RNZ revealed a little more detail.

It showed the panel was reviewing Waitākere Hospital’s infection, prevention and control measures, as well as the use of PPE, training, rostering and the management of patients.

However, it is not investigating how the staff contracted covid-19 – this was being done by Auckland Regional Public Health.

Dr Bloomfield said he expected to be given a copy of the review today.

“The important thing here is we learn from each of the instances we have had so that we can then update our approach and policies nationally, which is what we’re intending to do here,” Dr Bloomfield said.

Dr Powell said the review process had lacked transparency.

“There’s a feeling of cover up here, which is utterly unnecessary and unhelpful, so I think that’s making people more nervous.”

The Waitematā District Health Board has indicated the review will be made public at the end of this week.

No new coronavirus cases
The Ministry of Health reported no new cases of covid-19 today as the country prepared go relax lockdown rules to alert level 2 on Thursday.

The number of confirmed and probable cases remains at 1497, with 1147 confirmed.

Two people are in hospital – one in Middlemore Hospital and one in North Shore Hospital – but there are no patients in ICU and there have been no further deaths.

Dr Bloomfield said 12 more people have recovered – 93 percent have recovered overall.