Kerre Woodham Mornings Podcast

Last Friday, I caught up with the neighbours. It was a long time between drinks and it was lovely to sit on the deck on one of the few glorious evenings in Auckland, learning a bit more about the people in my street. I already knew that one of the women was a nurse and it appeared she was a very good one at that. She had worked around the world in public hospitals and in private clinics for the stonkingly rich and clearly loved what she did. Or rather, she used to love what she does. The sheer grind of working in a public hospital in New Zealand was taking it out of her. The lack of staff, the weight of demand for hospital services was absolutely relentless. She said recently she had been asked to go back on duty on Tuesday evening, despite having worked that day to cover for a sick colleague. She didn't get home till Thursday morning and she was rung late that day, roused from her sleep, and asked to come in and cover for another vacancy. When she groggily explained, it really, really wouldn't be all that safe for her to come in the caller reluctantly rang off and went in pursuit of another exhausted nurse. Good luck finding one. Now this is an anecdotal story. I haven't seen her timesheet to verify that what she said was true, but what she said certainly struck me as believable. She also said nobody is allowed to talk publicly about how dreadful the conditions are, how poorly staffed they are, how exhausted they are, what kind of rabbits they're having to pull out of hats to look after patients. I think any patient who's been in hospital recently will tell you that the nurses are doing an incredible job, but even they can see just how frantic everything is, just how hard the nurses are working - that they're running, not walking. They're trying to be the professionals they are, in the most appalling conditions. You will lose your job if you put your name to any complaints publicly, she said. And that has been told to me before by texters on this show.   But this is the state the hospitals are in now, in what we laughingly call the end of summer. This is what our hospitals are like with nurses working around the clock, before the dangerous flus and viruses hit us over winter. One under pressure ED is at 195% capacity. Doctors and nurses have raised concerns about the winter ahead, given this is usually a quieter time for hospital numbers, a time where medical staff can take leave, can draw breath and gird their loins for the winter ahead. At Auckland City Hospital, the ambos had to step in and care for patients on Sunday and Monday because ED beds were not available. Therefore, there are no ambulances available to pick up the next people who need ED help. Patients are being diverted from Auckland hospitals to North Shore Hospital because there are some spare beds on the shore, apparently. Dunedin's the same. We all locked down, stayed home, got vaccinated so as not to overwhelm the hospitals. Well, bugger me, the hospitals are overwhelmed and it's not even winter. The New Zealand Nurses Organisation’s Anne Daniels said the pressure on EDs means we're in trouble right now. It's not just a few hot spots that need dampening down; the entire nation is on fire. What an absolute mess.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The nationwide Open Farms Day is back on again this Sunday, 12th of March. 25 farms around the country are opening up for urban Kiwis to reconnect with food and farming. Open Farms Founder Daniel Eb joined Kerre Woodham. For more information: https://www.openfarms.co.nz/ LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Peter Knight, from Auckland, took his wife to Auckland City Hospital on Monday because she had severe abdominal pains. Staff were coping admirably, he said, but the department was clearly understaffed and overworked. One nurse said the ED was at 195 per cent capacity. St John workers were looking after patients in the corridors, he said. “It was like a war zone and it was Monday afternoon in the off-season,” he said. Te Whatu Ora interim lead for Te Toka Tumai Auckland, Dr Mike Shepherd, said that the ED had been particularly busy on Sunday and this had a flow-on effect on Monday in terms of capacity. Numbers had since settled, he said. Peter Knight joined Kerre Woodham Mornings. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Yesterday we had a number of listeners wondering if Napier is still open for business and tourism if they venture to the Sir Rod Stewart concert at The Mission Estate. Some were surprised it was going ahead given the state of the roads to get there and others were worried about accommodation. To clarify the situation CEO of Hawke's Bay Tourism, Hamish Saxton, joined Kerre Woodham. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

As has been much discussed lately, doctors and nurses have raised concerns about the winter ahead given some Emergency Departments are already over capacity. There are concerns that many hospitals around the country are understaffed and the staff employed are overworked. However, in a good news story, Waikato University's nursing student intake has more than doubled. The school has a record 210 new students attending its two nursing programmes this year. Waiora School of Health's acting dean Dr Joe Lane joined Kerre Woodham. LISTEN ABOVE  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Everyone staying in New Zealand tonight, aside from those impacted by Cyclone Gabrielle.are legally required to complete their Census forms today.  As of this morning, more than 1.4 million people have returned an Individual Form. The Census collection period for the affected areas has been extended until June first. Stats NZ Deputy Chief Executive Simon Mason joined Kerre Woodham to discuss the process in detail. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Christopher Luxon finally got to make his State of the Nation speech yesterday, in which he berated Labour for its many, many sins. Highest inflation in 32 years, only 46 per cent of kids attending school, regularly falling standards of education, the increase in violent crime.   Christopher Luxon then made promises that a National Government would turn things around with youth military academies for serious youth offenders, getting young people who can work off welfare and into work, lifting tax brackets to give the average earner more money in their pockets and restoring discipline to Government spending. And he also used the speech to announce the Family Boost child care tax rebate to make early childhood education more affordable. The plan will target lower and middle income families, about 130,000 of them, and parents will receive a 25% rebate on their early childhood education expenses, up to a maximum of $3,900 dollars a year. It will be a rebate, not a grant, and will be paid fortnightly by IRD into parents bank accounts. And how will the country afford that? Christopher Luxon says it will be fully funded with the money this current Government is currently wasting on contractors and consultants - $1.7 billion per year. Not over the government's lifetime, per year. And he said the good thing about the Family Boost policy is that it will give New Zealand families choices.  How much would getting 25% of your costs back, let's round about to $4000 a year, mean to you in terms of how you're trying to juggle the family finances? When it comes to getting 75 bucks a week extra back into your pocket, I would argue it make a huge difference to young families. It would certainly have made a huge difference to me at the time.    So absolutely I liked Christopher Luxon's speech. I like the fact that he believes in New Zealand, that he believes that we'll get our way out of the trouble that we're in because of who we are. You know, playing into that New Zealand daring do #8 wire innovation and hard work and enterprise. And I did like the particular comment, he said. ‘Whatever we want our standard of living has to be earned. Only a strong competitive economy can afford the services that New Zealanders expect. There is no entitlement, no automatic right to live as a first world country.’ Amen. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It's been three weeks since Cyclone Gabrielle hit, and there are still some cut-off and without power in Hawke's Bay. Across the Hastings District, 10 communities are still are isolated and more than 13-hundred homes don't have power. Hastings Mayor Sandra Hazlehurst told Kerre Woodham that people and volunteers around the region are working to clear silt and clean up the damage. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The process of rebuilding communities that have taken a hit during the weather events of this summer is going to be a long and arduous process. Tough decisions will have to be made. Personal decisions will have to be made. Do you want to go back and live in the place where your worst nightmare occurred? I’m thinking of the families whose homes came down in landslides, whose homes were flooded and had to flee in the middle of the night. And there are many Auckland families, and indeed Hawkes Bay families, who have been flooded not once, not twice, not three times, but more than that. I'm thinking of the lovely lady who rang us who had been washed away in the floods, her home had been destroyed that they'd worked so hard on. Her mum was living with them - she had to go into a rest home because while they were in the process of rebuilding because it was cold and it was damp there was Polyurethane covering some of the walls so she couldn't live there.  So all of a sudden life changed. Well, I just wonder what happened to her in these latest floods, if she's been hit again, will she want to go back there?   A group of West Auckland homeowners, and this will not be the first group, has set up agroup asking authorities to step in and buy their flood affected properties so they can leave.  Basically, execute the managed retreat that's being talked about, a process where people are relocated and their properties are turned into parks or reserves. The campaign is backed by Te Atatu MP Phil Twyford who's been working with families in about eight neighbourhoods since the floods of 2021. A report found the flooding was partly due to blockages in the Waimoko stream, partly due to geography and the overpowering force of the one-in-100-year flood, which then came along in 2022. These one in 100 year events seem to be occurring far more often!  Should the same thing happen in Esk Valley? Should clifftop homes be part of a managed retreat, something like the King's chain, whereby the shoreline belongs to the public and you have access to the beach, the cliff tops are the same. You get access to the spectacular views and walk along there and houses are moved back from cliff edges. When we talk about buying back houses? That's the taxpayer. That's us trying to pay our mortgages as well as other people's homes. It might be the way to do it. I mean we are going to have to take a long hard look, not just stick a Band-Aid on communities, spend billions of dollars and then do it all again in another couple of years.   When it comes to the managed retreats and the rebuilding of communities, do we rebuild them in the same places? Do we restore homes and put people back in there after they've been flooded once, twice, three times? That doesn't seem like sane advice, when we're being told that the weather's only going to get worse. We're spending billions anyway, about every couple of years on natural disasters, or do people just have to cut their losses and clear out? And it's on the individual and not the community. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Wellbeing support is available for cyclone-stricken Napier residents. Mental health advocate Mike King and winery owner Greg Miller are opening the "I Am Hope Wellness Centre" there today. It's situated on the flood-ravaged Valley d'Vine restaurant premises on Linden Estate. A team of four counsellors and one doctor are taking annual leave for a fortnight to offer health services at no cost. King told Kerre Woodham they want to be operating for a minimum of three months. He says he's contracting as many counsellors as he can to spend at least six hours at the centre a day, paid for by donations. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.