Tuesday 20 July 2010

The Editor

The Listener

Dear Editor

Karl Du Fresne's compelling expose of the theoretical nonsense used to justify the demise of IHC sheltered workshops (Listener 17-23 July) parallels the nonsensical agenda which has seen the public health system taken over by an ever-growing bureaucracy which has largely eliminated the previously valued input of health professionals.  

Nowhere is this more apparent than in what remains of the rural hospitals network which, prior to the so-called "reforms" in the early 90s, provided local services at remarkably low costs. For example, in the early 90s, Otago rural hospitals ran on annual budgets as low as $400,000 for which they provided a remarkable range of services - in the words of one rural G.P. known to me, "from birth at one end to hospice care at the other". But, just as Mr. Du Fresne described the change in IHC from being community-based to, "national administration at odds with its grassroots membership", so the rural hospitals network has been supplanted by medical centres providing fewer services and necessitating increased travel for people outside the main centres.

Along with the proliferation of centralised bureaucracy has come a huge raft of pseudo-democracy in the form of impotent DHB boards with their pointless "advisory" committees, hugely expensive outside consultants, and paper wars which defy belief. Nowhere is this more apparent than on the South Island West Coast where I was twice elected to the board and twice resigned in disgust at the disgraceful pretence that the community was being represented, along with the demeaning attitude exhibited towards highly experienced health professionals by ill-qualified, career-ladder-climbing management.

Mr. Du Fresne's account of Sue Bradford's distorted view of sheltered workshops which ignores both the feelings of those who worked in them and the views of their families is a stunning condemnation of the politicians who put theoretical dogma before practice and who stubbornly refuse to learn from past mistakes. 

David Tranter

Health spokesman

N.Z. Democrats for Social Credit